Cool Seahawks Shit

In honor of the Seahawks playing in today's Super Bowl, here's an assortment of memorabilia, memories, and other stuff dating back to their inaugural season, 1976, when I was seven. In many of my childhood photos I'm wearing Seahawks-branded jackets, sweatshirts, a beanie and a polo shirt. I also had a brass Seahawks belt buckle and a Steve Largent jersey, and probably some other things that I don't recall. I do recall having some other non-clothing items, like Seahawks drinking glasses from McDonald's (they all eventually broke) and a Seahawks gumball helmet (whereabouts unknown), and I still have my original 1976 pennant, though it's yellowed with age. That's it in above photo, along with most of my other Seahawks collection. I took that picture in 2006, the only other time Seattle made the Super Bowl.

The origin of the Seahawks logo was recently explored in this cool Burke Museum blog post; it includes the above graphic, which I distinctly remember seeing in the newspaper way back when.
Below is what the maiden '76 Topps Seahawks football cards looked like...

In March 1977, I saw Ron Howard (not Richie Cunningham, but the guy above) and some other Seahawks play a charity basketball game against the varsity squad at Kent-Meridian, where ten years later I'd graduate high school. That's me in my Seahawks windbreaker, having just gotten Steve Largent's autograph and zeroing in on the next guy...

As if one Largent autograph wasn't enough, I also sent the future Hall-of-Famer some fan mail, and got this in return...

Largent used to be my favorite Seahawk, before he went into politics to push his doucheball agenda. I never really adopted a new favorite Seahawk.
Here's a Polaroid of me with an unnamed Seagal cheerleader at the Seatac Mall Jafco, circa 1978. It was some promotional thing...

Also leading cheers was the first (and best) Seahawks mascot, who disappeared not long after his 1979 debut...

All along I've collected these Seahawks pocket schedules, my favorite being the '79 sked featuring original quarterback Jim Zorn...

The southpaw once made a personal appearance at my elementary school, driving up in his silver, Seahawk logo-adorned Datsun 280Z. Alas, he visited some classroom other than mine.
I don't own any of these media guides; I just found the images online and posted 'em to Flickr...

Also on Flickr is my set of Seattle athletes on the cover of Sports Illustrated; the first Seahawk wasn't so featured until Shaun Alexander's appearance in 2005...

This is my favorite Seahawks souvenir of the '80s, a perfect-bound book with lots of color photos...

Back when the Hawks made it to the Super Bowl in 2006, I wrote a blog post about the then-current Seahawks novelty songs. (There's far more such tunes this time around, but I didn't feel inspired to compile them.) Around the same time, we named one of our goldfish after the QB who led the Seahawks to Super Bowl XL: Matt Hasselbeck, 2006-2006. RIP, buddy...

Another thing I wrote was the trollish The 12th Man is Stupid. Sorry, but I still think it's lame that the team retired number 12. Here's part of a 1984 Seattle Times article I dug up at the library explaining the origin of this nonsense...

On a similar note, this recent 12th Man article in The Onion cracked me up...

Every time I see these clowns I think of this.
In anticipation of this year's Super Bowl, I picked up a few impulse souvenirs: a cool Seahawks cap (I quickly took a seam ripper to the dumb New Era logo on its side), a Super Bowl XLVIII program (found yesterday at Costco), and from Bartell, a Russell Wilson Lego-type guy...

Over the last couple weeks I've been working on this sweet 1980 latch hook kit I scored on eBay -- here's how it turned out, alongside the original box art...

All this Hawk talk got me to thinking about the actual games I've attended. They've gone 8-1 with me in the stands, either at the Kingdome (the first seven games listed below) or at their current stadium (the last two). Here are the results...

November 7, 1976 – Beat Atlanta, 30-13
October 2, 1977 – Lost to Denver, 24-12
November 18, 1979 – Beat New Orleans, 38-24
November 16, 1981 – Beat San Diego, 44-23
November 27, 1983 – Beat Kansas City, 51-48
September 9, 1984 – Beat San Diego, 31-17
December 2, 1984 – Beat Detroit 38-17
October 31, 2004 – Beat Carolina, 23-17
September 24, 2012 – Beat Green Bay, 14-12

Alright, that's it. Hopefully by the end of today, the Seahawks will have secured Seattle's first major pro sports championship since the Sonics won the NBA title 35 years ago. I have nothing left to say, except "Go Hawks!"
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