🏠 A hometown win

I watched the Super Bowl alone on my laptop in a hotel room in Japan.

Some of this was a conscious choice.

Back before the playoffs started, Sharon and I had planned a vacation to visit Sapporo and go skiing in Niseko.

However, my connecting flight to Sapporo had been canceled, leaving me “stuck” in Tokyo for two nights. That’s how I wound up watching the team I covered for the better part of 20 years play the biggest game of the year in a country where it wasn’t even being carried on television.

There is a fairly obvious metaphor here about the path my life has taken in the six years since I left Seattle and moved to New York.

I’m going to pass on that layup and attempt a more difficult shot. 

On the Sunday of the Super Bowl – which was Monday morning in Japan -- I felt a deep and genuine happiness watching that game that was unlike anything I’ve experienced as a sports fan. 

Some of this was because I have friends who work for the team. Guys like Nasser Kyobe and John Boyle, whom I’ve known for years.

Some of this was because of how much I liked some of the guys I got to know as members of Seattle’s front office: John Schneider and Trent Kirchner, Matt Berry and Nolan Teasley.

Most of my happiness, though, was for my city.

I am truly happy for Seattle and the leather-lunged fans who populate its stadiums.

I could use words like “deserve” or “long suffering” to dramatize my point, but I won’t. There are cities that have won less than Seattle. Cleveland and San Diego come to mind.

And while Seattle certainly has had its share of metaphorical gut punches, we’re not the only ones who’ve accumulated heartbreak.

And as I was watching Seattle’s defense beat Drake Maye with a regularity usually reserved for dead horses or snare drums, I came to a realization: I may live in New York, but it’s Seattle that I consider home.

That’s a new feeling for me. One that probably reflects some very specific events in my life.

I was born in Oregon and lived in that state until I was 15. In fact, it’s where my father is buried, but I haven’t been back to Klamath Falls in more than 20 years.

My family moved to California shortly after my Pop died. I went to high school in Santa Cruz County, and after graduating, I headed off to the University of Washington. It was the school farthest away from my stepfather that I could afford to attend.

I have friends in California. My sister still lives there, but it’s never felt like home for me, and it has felt even more distant after my Mom died in 2019.

The facts of my upbringing have not changed. My feeling of home has, however.

I lived in Connecticut for a year and a half in the late ‘90s, and I’ve been in New York for six years now, but Seattle is the place I know best, and perhaps more importantly, the place I have the fondest feelings for.

And my understanding of that city is very much tied to its sports.

That’s natural given how much time I spent covering them as a newspaper reporter and then talking about them on the radio.

It’s actually deeper than that, though.

My first trip to Seattle was to watch a game. This was 1987, and the NCAA West Regional was being held at the Kingdome. I was living in Oregon at the time, and one of my father’s friends from high school flew me up to watch UNLV play Iowa. I was – for reasons that are hard to explain – a fan of the Runnin’ Gunnin’ Rebels of UNLV. Gerald Paddio, Freddie Banks and Armon Gilliam.

I watched that UNLV team dig out of a 17-point hole to reach the Final Four.

The second time I came to Seattle also included a game.

That year after my dad died, the man who would (soon) marry my mom took our family on a road trip to Seattle. He bought tickets to watch the Mariners face the Royals. It was 1990, Ken Griffey Jr.’s rookie year, and that Royals team included Bo Jackson.

In 1993, I timed my visit to the University of Washington to coincide with the tournament, coming up to watch Michigan and its Fab Five beat a Temple team that included Eddie Jones and Aaron McKie to reach the Final Four.

In 2001, I was covering high-school sports at The Seattle Times, when I was offered two of our publisher’s season tickets to the Mariners, which just so happened to be in the Diamond Club. I invited the young lady I was dating at the time, but I was nervous about it. She was also a reporter at the paper, and I remember how excited I was when she agreed to go: It meant she wasn’t embarrassed to be seen in public with me.

From 2005 through 2019, my professional life revolved around the Seahawks. I was at every home game. I followed them on the road. I spent one Thanksgiving in Dallas, another in Santa Clara and there was one time I had to leave my in-laws on Christmas Day so I could get to Tampa, Fla.

Being totally honest, it was a little strange watching from a distance as this Seahawks team marched to the Super Bowl.

I don’t know these players or these coaches. At least not the way I used to when I was sitting through press conferences and talking to players in the locker room.

There are parts of this that I miss a great deal. On the whole, however, I am extremely happy to be trying something new.

In some ways, distance has made me fonder and a bit more passionate about Seattle sports. I know first-hand what they mean to the city, and now they’re the primary bridge that keeps me connected to the place I consider home.

Even if I was sitting by myself in a hotel room in Japan watching on my laptop as the Seahawks flogged the Patriots in the Super Bowl.

As for the trip to Japan? It was absolutely awesome.

I even ate fugu, which is a type of blowfish that must be cut in a very particular way.

It was pretty good. Stronger tasting than most white fish. Best of all: non-lethal!