I was requested to post this to this thread.

I thought I would write a little bit about why I love the Seahawks so much. I never really paid attention to football growing up; I mean, look at my profile picture. Does that look like a guy who cares about football? I always hated the "dumb jock" mentality, and pretty much shaped my life to be the exact opposite of that in every way. To my credit, I did try to play football my freshman year of high school, when I lived in a tiny town in the middle of Central Nevada nowhere. I had already been playing Dungeons & Dragons for about 5 years by then, so why this nerdy kid who always had his nose in a book decided to try out for the football team, I honestly can't say and don't even really remember. It might have had something to do with the attitude of the town I lived in; everyone seemed to revere the students who played some sort of sport, while approximately nobody celebrated the quiet, bookworm "artsy" types like me. Every time there was a high school football game, we would burn a giant "redacted letter" (for our high school mascot) on the hulking rocky natural monolith that stood in the center of town to celebrate our team. I guess a part of me wanted to participate in that recognition, to stake out my place in that tiny culture that existed in the middle of nowhere. But of course I was athletically terrible at football, and I think I participated in exactly one play in a regular season game (I don't even remember who our opponent was). Anyways, other than a pathetic attempt at Little League Baseball my 6th grade year, that was my only attempt at sports on any level in my entire life.

Fast foward to 2008. I had made a nice career for myself as a restaurant server/video game beta tester/pawn shop worker/door to door salesman/whatever else I could find for work. I started working at a casino on the Strip in Las Vegas, at a 24 hour cafe as a busser. I met some of the coolest people there, too many to list but many of whom I'm friends with on Facebook still. The restaurant's walls were covered in flat screen tv's, and during football season we would play all the different games and I would have occasion to stop and watch during my shift. My fellow bussers taught me the rules of football (which I only had a passing knowledge of before) and I found myself getting into games the likes of which I never had experienced before in my life.

Of course, who do you choose to root for when you live in Las Vegas? We are the lifeless desert of pro-teams, rooting for maybe whoever is West Coast in the best case scenario. Or, if you're like my brother (a Broncos fan), you were lucky enough to discover a team early in your childhood because you were exposed to and bothered to pay attention to their great accomplishments. So who did I choose? I chose the Seahawks. That's right, band wagoner accusers, I liked the Seahawks before 2012. When I was a kid, I collected baseball cards, and I LOVED Ken Griffey Jr. I had all of his cards, and I followed the Mariners as best as a fantasy book nerd who was only marginally interested in any sport let alone baseball could. So when it came time for me to choose, of course I gravitated to another Seattle team, the Seahawks.

I wondered why nobody in the media ever seemed to talk about them. They had definitely had their ups and downs, probably as many as any other NFL team, but they seemed to be the unspoken Quasimodo of the league. I had already been planning to move to Seattle by this time, and I started reading about the city and its sports history. I found out that the last time Seattle had won a Pro National Championship was in 1979 when the Super Sonics won the NBA Finals. And of course I found out how that team was sold to Oklahoma in 2008. What an anti-climactic ending to a great team and legacy. I found out how the Mariners had had a few decent runs (particularly in 2001) but there still seemed to be a "Seattle Curse" that affected teams in the great Pacific North West. And of course I learned about the Seahawks. I learned about some pretty awesome moments in the 80s, like the amazing 1984 run where we won 12 games in a row (the same year we retired the number "12" in honor of Seahawks fans), or 1988 when Steve Largent made records in receiving yards. And of course I learned about when Matt Hasselbeck and Shaun Alexander led our team to our first Super Bowl appearance in franchise history in 2006, losing to the Steelers in a tragic way. Of course championships continued to allude Seattle. But it wasn't our time yet.

So I was fortunate enough to realize my years-long dream of moving from Las Vegas to Seattle in 2011. By then Pete Carroll had been coach for a year, and we had already seen the Seahawks make the playoffs with a losing 7-9 record, the first team in NFL history to do so, and we saw Marshawn Lynch's legendary "Beast Quake" touchdown run to defeat the Saints in an extremely improbable playoff win that literally nobody expected us to win. I think this was the moment that I chose to become a die-hard Seahawks fan and decided to throw my lot in with the team, forsaking all others. Ever since then, I have witnessed nothing but an upward trajectory. I watched our 2012 draft class get savaged by the media (major national outlets gave us an "F" grade across the board), and then I watched that same class go on to the playoffs that year, and lose against the Falcons by the skin of their teeth after erasing a 20 point deficit with a rookie quarterback and that "F" grade draft class. The very next year, I watched the Seahawks erase a nearly 40 year Pro Championship deficit for the city by getting to and winning the Super Bowl, after every single media pundit dismissed them and said that it would never happen. And yes, a few days after the game I was out on those streets with a million of my fellow Seattilites during that legendary Super Bowl parade. I can only hope that people in other cities can experience what I experience living every day in Seattle as a football fan. The Seahawks have brought this city together like very few other teams in NFL history I think, and tomorrow we have a chance to double down on our improbable success. Whether we win or lose, we will be celebrating with our fellow "12s". I don't care if you think being a 12 is a gimmick, to us it is very real and if you could experience it yourself you would see how electrifying it is. If only your city had anything near the love we have for our teams. Then maybe you wouldn't hate Seahawks fans so much and you could rediscover that special connection that you could have with your own team. Then maybe other teams in the NFL besides the Seahawks might have a chance at Championships again.