The City of Seattle’s Relationship With UW & UW Football
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As a Thurston County kid born and reared in '77, the dawgs really only had this region locked up from 1989-1993. The Hawks had been #1 since '83-90, minus the '85 Orange Bowl and Natty. '82 Rose Bowl was all Dawgs. The '89 Freedom Bowl was a sea change.
Holmgren and the New Stadium won over the rabid South King County fan base and they never looked back. It's like Halloween every home game. Most rational Puget Sounders from my era love both teams almost equally, with the most successful always being more popular...unless you went to UW and are deathly ill from HUSKY FEVER!
I was a Hawk from birth till the Freedom Bowl. Now I am ALL DAWG and the hawks had actually dropped to 5th behind UWFB, UWMB, Sonics and Mariners before Holmgrem showed up.
The Biggest game in town growing up was always Seattle/Denver and Capital/Olympia. Capital/Tumwater was never a contest until '93 but the T-Birds were the BEST TEAM IN THE STATE! -
With all due respect - went to school with some Capital guys.seatownfunk said:As a Thurston County kid born and reared in '77, the dawgs really only had this region locked up from 1989-1993. The Hawks had been #1 since '83-90, minus the '85 Orange Bowl and Natty. '82 Rose Bowl was all Dawgs. The '89 Freedom Bowl was a sea change.
Holmgren and the New Stadium won over the rabid South King County fan base and they never looked back. It's like Halloween every home game. Most rational Puget Sounders from my era love both teams almost equally, with the most successful always being more popular...unless you went to UW and are deathly ill from HUSKY FEVER!
I was a Hawk from birth till the Freedom Bowl. Now I am ALL DAWG and the hawks had actually dropped to 5th behind UWFB, UWMB, Sonics and Mariners before Holmgrem showed up.
The Biggest game in town growing up was always Seattle/Denver and Capital/Olympia. Capital/Tumwater was never a contest until '93 but the T-Birds were the BEST TEAM IN THE STATE!
Those were some of the dumbest motherfuckers the Throbber has ever encountered. Good guys, good drinkers but if the conversation went beyond "Uh....uh.....BEER BONG!!", forget it.
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Went to a Seahawks game in Carroll’s first year. Stadium was maybe 2/3rds full. Drunk asshole in Steelers Jersey a few rows in front of me. Nobody bothered him.whlinder said:1999 Seacocks won the AFC (yes AFC) West at 9-7. And had home games blacked out from not selling out. UW And slick Rick was the hot ticket.
It took Washington sucking cock at football and the Hawks (“It’s NOW time!!!1one!!!”) being decent in a shitty NFC to flip the script in the mid 2000s with a fancy new stadium that pumped in noise. 12s!
Seattle was always, ALWAYS a Husky town before then. Now I don’t know if it will ever be that again, with Russell being a really good QB and the Pac-12 not caring about football. Everyone likes winners which was Washington and not the Hawks until about 18 years ago. I hope Russell loses both his legs to a flesh eating bacteria and Pete Carroll retires to live with his lesbian lover.
The next year (2011), i was by the Stadium and about to take a $150 cab ride to Tacoma after a night of drinking in Seattle. Instead, once I got by the Stadium, I bought scalper tickets. Second row, 40 yard line of the 2nd deck. Cost me $20.
I see how much Seahawks tickets are going for on the secondary market and it’s crazy to me. They weren’t really a hot item until the Super Bowl year. -
'83-'86 Seahawks were a hot ticket. But that was it. Seachickens were hated by many football fans while UW still drew 50K plus even while going 0-12.RoadDawg55 said:
Went to a Seahawks game in Carroll’s first year. Stadium was maybe 2/3rds full. Drunk asshole in Steelers Jersey a few rows in front of me. Nobody bothered him.whlinder said:1999 Seacocks won the AFC (yes AFC) West at 9-7. And had home games blacked out from not selling out. UW And slick Rick was the hot ticket.
It took Washington sucking cock at football and the Hawks (“It’s NOW time!!!1one!!!”) being decent in a shitty NFC to flip the script in the mid 2000s with a fancy new stadium that pumped in noise. 12s!
Seattle was always, ALWAYS a Husky town before then. Now I don’t know if it will ever be that again, with Russell being a really good QB and the Pac-12 not caring about football. Everyone likes winners which was Washington and not the Hawks until about 18 years ago. I hope Russell loses both his legs to a flesh eating bacteria and Pete Carroll retires to live with his lesbian lover.
The next year (2011), i was by the Stadium and about to take a $150 cab ride to Tacoma after a night of drinking in Seattle. Instead, once I got by the Stadium, I bought scalper tickets. Second row, 40 yard line of the 2nd deck. Cost me $20.
I see how much Seahawks tickets are going for on the secondary market and it’s crazy to me. They weren’t really a hot item until the Super Bowl year.
The late arriving crowds started around the Ty era, then they started fucking with the start times and Husky stadium lost buzz.
At least NFL fans can count on 1:25 kickoffs. -
I like football
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You’re old afDawgsCanDance said:As an old-time Seattleite that grew up in Montlake my perspective is a little different regarding the Seattle sports scene.
Picture this:
in the 50's the big thing in Seattle was hydro racing ~ the city was NUTS about the rivalry with detroit and the gold cup was the thing that the entire town stopped and watched on the local boats, along the shoreline or on TV. TV was NEW... think about that. The most exciting TV ads were the local dairy ads for cottage cheese because the color guns on the new color tv's were out of alignment and so the cottage cheese ads looked like rainbow-colored product offerings. Cool.
Seattle was a small town that basically stopped at the city limits which was around the 7/11 on aurora that people in here are fond of referring to. Bellevue was a cow town that you needed to plan a day trip to get to because the bridge didn't exist yet. The freeway system through Seattle was just being built.
Seattle was a major league west coast city from a sports perspective in the sense that the PCL baseball league consisted of all of the major west coast teams... LA, SF, San Diego, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver BC. Throw in the Salt lake city Bees and the Hawaii Islanders and that was the league.
Same with hockey... the Western Hockey league was killer with LA, SF, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver BC and the local Canucks were a dynamite team. Seattle was definitely a great hockey town and the old ice arena really rocked... Yow, it was exciting to watch the long slap shots from the blue line amidst the smoke and air horns.
UW crew was a really big deal... it was the Dawgs and Cal vs the eastern powers of Harvard and some of the other IVY league schools.
The NFL didn't really exist on the west coast until the 49ers and Rams were introduced on the west coast... so you had your choice of which of those two teams were your local favorite.
So, the college football scene was the only game in town throughout most of the west. West coast football was a regional affair ~ UCLA, USC, Washington and Cal were the teams of note but the big ten and the big 12 were really the teams that mattered nationally. No one really expected the west coast teams to do much from a national perspective until the west coast teams actually started to do something unusual ~ some of the teams started to throw the football, sometimes as much as 20X a game [origins of the so-called West Coast Offense]
Some of the games were televised but until ABC sports started televising national games, football was all about going to the game. The metro league was an important part of the Dawgs recruiting footprint. In those days the Metro league was the best part of the local football scene, and there was a city vs state all-star game at the end of the season that the City team was usually the winner of.
It was one platoon football, the teams were small and the schedule often included luminary offerings ~ Here is the 1957 schedule:
University of Colorado SEP 21 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
MINNESOTA SEP 28 ~ At MINNEAPOLIS AND SAINT PAUL, MINN.
OHIO STATE OCT 5 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
UCLA OCT 12 ~ AT UCLA LOS ANGELES, CALIF.
Stanford OCT 19 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
Oregon State OCT 26 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
University of Southern California NOV 2 ~ SEATTLE, WASH.
University of Oregon NOV 9 ~ AT EUGENE, ORE.
University of California NOV 16 ~ AT BERKELEY, CALIF.
Washington State NOV 23 ~ SEATTLE, WASH. -
@RaceBannon disagreesFishpo31 said:First Husky experience was in 74. Road tripped from EWA with my uncle and his buddies for UCLA. Sat just above the student section.
My 14 year old impressions: Lots of girls, drinking, first time I ever smelled pot...this college thing needs to be explored. My pops was a fan, because he was from Texas, and was very familiar with Owens from when he was at Okie. One of my buddies dads played for 2 years at UW in the late 50's, and he and I were pretty much the only dawg fans in a town of Cuogs.
Many cross-state trips over the years (3-4 per year, beginning in college), we had so much fun before, during, and after the games. People were passionate, knowledgeable, loud, and there for football FIRST, not to get trashed in "The Zone", or on a boat. You got trashed in your seat, watching the game. Post-game to the U district or Pioneer Square. When it was safe to be in either place (or anywhere in Seattle) after dark.
Fast forward, moved to Seattle, season tickets, different vibe now. Less a football game, more an "entertainment experience"...For me, the last remnants of the good old days was the Stanford plungering...we gave up the tix in '19...no Lou Gellerman (RIP), no good band, seizure-inducing graphics / music, students / others leaving at half time...that 'aint Husky football. Never been to a Century Link Hawk game / money grab. It sucks getting old, Time Waits for No One...give me back my Keith Jackson... -
UW has become more of an international/commuter school. The campus connection to athletics is night and day from when I was in school 20 years ago.
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When I was a kid down on the Harb, the Huskies were the game in town. The Hawks were a fledgling expansion franchise struggling for respect.
Things really changed with the Hawks in '83 when they beat Don Shula and the Miami Dolphins in the playoffs. To me, that first (I think it was their first) playoff run really got everyone in the PNW to rally around the Hawks. Getting to and finally winning a SB and all that and now being one of the League's legitimately premier franchises has obviously kicked it up a notch.
Seems to me that if UW is even mildly competitive they are on par with the Seahawks as a draw and source of pride. But against every bias in my brain, I have to admit it's hard to make the case now that the UW is the real town favorite. The Hawks have had too much success and people like a winner ... even in Seattle. -
The year after the DAWGS won the Orange Bowl in Miami while the Hawks lost to Marinocreepycoug said:When I was a kid down on the Harb, the Huskies were the game in town. The Hawks were a fledgling expansion franchise struggling for respect.
Things really changed with the Hawks in '83 when they beat Don Shula and the Miami Dolphins. To me, that first (I think it was their first) playoff run really got everyone in the PNW to rally around the Hawks. Getting to and finally winning a SB and all that and now being one of the League's legitimately premier franchises has obviously kicked it up a notch.
Seems to me that if UW is even mildly competitive they are on par with the Seahawks as a draw and source of pride. But against every bias in my brain, I have to admit it's hard to make the case now that the UW is the real town favorite. The Hawks have had too much success and people like a winner ... even in Seattle.
The 83 Hawks beat the Raiders twice in the regular season then got blown out in the AFC title game
Wouldn’t surprise me if the Hawks are more popular now
Hell the Trojans are losing out to the Rams
