Danny O’Neil
Clarity: Pete Carroll’s Quirky, Lasting Legacy
We won't see another NFL coach like him again
I covered sports for more than 20 years in this city, and I should know better than catching feelings for a coach. Besides, the most unusual thing about Carroll’s firing is that he lasted this long. Pete may not have been able to win forever, as his book proclaimed, but lasting 14 years is closer than almost everyone thought he’d come when he took the job.
A Marital Pump Fake
An excruciating week teaches a valuable lesson
The proposal went as planned.
My girlfriend thought we were headed to Place Pigalle for dinner, and we were, but only after we’d stopped by The Inn at the Market. I told her I’d heard there was a view from the roof, a ruse so I could lead her to the hotel room she didn’t know I’d reserved.
Most Influential, Sports: Kalen Deboer
Former University of Washington football coach
He started out small, leading Sioux Falls to three NAIA championships in his five years as head coach. He then worked his way up the NCAA food chain with stops at Southern Illinois and Western Michigan…
Photo by Scott Eklund / Redbox Pictures
Most Influential, Sports: Sandy Gregory
Sports executive, activist
Sandy Gregory was an original Seahawk, hired six months before the team played its first game, and no one had a bigger role in weaving that franchise into the fabric of this region. She spent decades doing everything from arranging charity appearances to coordinating events to getting items signed for benefit auctions and people in need. As the team became an institution, she also kept the franchise connected to its former players.
Clarity: Becoming a Beginner
Change is inevitable. Let’s embrace it.
So, I shut up for the next minute or maybe even two. I stopped listening to what was being said and let my eyes wander around the studio before I began staring distantly at a spot on the wall above the window that looked out into the newsroom. I was like a pinball machine that had tilted.
His Own Man
Pete Carroll doesn’t always trust the analytics that have taken over sports
Socially liberal, but a football conservative. That description of Pete Carroll may come as a surprise to Seattle, which for the past 13 years has watched the coach defy the expectations of his profession. In other words, he’s not beholden to analytics. He does not use fear to motivate his players. He does not threaten…
The Numbers Guy
Sean Clement backed into a career he didn’t know existed
Sean Clement was not looking for a profession when he began applying formulas to football. He just needed practice. A graduate of Bremerton High School, Clement was an officer in the Army in his mid-30s. He felt a little bit out of his depth among all these big math brains as he began a graduate…
The Grind Of A Grudge
MOVING PAST ANGER AND LETTING GO OF TOXIC ENERGY
I was watching a Seahawks practice when the man I’d shunned for three years offered me an apology. “I’m sorry,” said Dave Mahler. You might know him as Softy. He hosts the afternoon sports-talk show at KJR 93.3 FM. “I was wrong, and I shouldn’t have said what I did.” He then offered me his…
collapse of a conference
The Pac-12 has no one to blame but itself
The Pacific Coast Conference had a hell of a run for something conceived on a Thursday night in a Portland hotel. It has been more than 100 years since five schools came together on Dec. 2, 1915, at the Imperial Hotel, forming the conference that has won more NCAA team championships than any other collegiate…
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