Steve began his journalistic career in an era in which social networking mainly occurred in saloons.
In the years since, he has been a reporter and columnist (Seattle Post-Intelligencer), a magazine founder and editor (The National Sports Review), the Director of Research at ESPN (once had the chore of looking up the history of rain delays in major league baseball), a radio talk show host (fired by KIRO because stupid people need radio stations, too, according to the program director), and the producer of a syndicated sports statistical feature (titled Wow!Stats), distributed by Universal Press Syndicate (quick, name three countries in which athletes are eaten when they fail to perform).
He wrote (with Karen Chave) 100 Years of Husky Football, Who The Hell is Bob? (one of Seattles more remarkable people) and collaborated with Art Thiel (Sports Press Northwest) and Mike Gastineau (KJR-AM) on The Great Book of Seattle Sports Lists, a ribald compendium of Seattle sports exotica that should be made into a movie (Brad Pitt playing Steve).
He gained everlasting infamy in 1985 (at least in Corvallis, Ore.), when, in a column in the Post-Intelligencer, he called the Oregon State Beavers The Barney Fife of College Football, then sat stupefied as the 37-point underdog Beavers cast aside a 28-year slump and beat the Huskies.
As of this writing, that game (which resulted in an official, Oregon State-issued game ball for Steve) still generates 314,000 Google pages, most of them from unenlightened (and presumably salt pillar-licking) OSU fans. Steve has yet to issue an apology on Facebook or Twitter and has no plans to do so.
In a week dominated by Deflategate and Seahawks RB Marshawn Lynch’s on-going cash drain for crotch-grabbing and non-talking, Seattle nickel cornerback Jeremy Lane, in a burst of Emerald City swagger, contributed a headline of his own that appeared on all major sports web sites. It said, “Seahawks’ Lane: Gronkowski not that good.” A fourth-year pro out of Northwest State (LA.), Lane apparently possesses knowledge no one else does.
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Your time is short on this planet if you witnessed Alan “The Horse” Ameche, the 1954 Heisman Trophy winner who spent six seasons (1955-60) with the Baltimore Colts. Ameche was famous for scoring the winning touchdown in overtime in the 1958 NFL Championship against the New York Giants, a game often called “the greatest ever played” – not because it was, but because it prompted network television to invest in pro football for the first time.
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There IS crying in football.
Moments after throwing a 35-yard, overtime touchdown pass to Jermaine Kearse to end the most improbable victory by any team in Seattle pro sports history, Russell Wilson unabashedly shed tears in front of a national television audience as he celebrated a 28-22 victory over the Green Bay Packers that clinched a return trip to the Super Bowl. They will play the New England Patriots, who beat Indianapolis 45-7 for the AFC title, Feb. 1 in Glendale, AZ.
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Las Vegas established the Seahawks as 7-to-7½-point favorites to defeat Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers Sunday in the NFC Championship game at CenturyLink Field. It’s obvious why. Since 2012, the Seahawks have won 25 of 27 regular-season and home playoff games by an average margin of 15.4 points. No team is close to that kind of dominance.
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Pete Carroll spends the majority of his press-conference time responding to media inquiries while rarely making one himself. But during Saturday night’s presser following the Seahawks’ 31-17 victory over the Carolina Panthers, Carroll had a question of his own amid commenting on the performance of Russell Wilson, who threw for 268 yards and three touchdowns with a 149.2 passer rating.
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Led by a hobbling but still effective QB Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers rallied in the second half to defeat the Dallas Cowboys 26-21 Sunday at Lambeau Field, earning the right to face the Seahawks next Sunday at CenturyLink Field for the NFC championship. The winner will advance to Super Bowl XLIX Feb. 1 in Glendale, AZ.
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The Seahawks resoundingly quashed one Super Bowl jinx Saturday night, becoming the first defending champion since the 2005 New England Patriots to win a playoff game. In emphatic fashion, with a big second half, the Seahawks rolled to a 31-17 victory over the Carolina Panthers at CenturyLink Field to reach their second consecutive NFC Championship.
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Rewind to Oct. 26, when the 3-3 Seahawks traveled to Charlotte to face Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers. A loss probably would have derailed any chance the defending Super Bowl champions had of returning to the postseason. A dire outcome seemed imminent when the Seahawks took possession at their 20 with less than five minutes to play, trailing 9-6.
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Raking in a near-record 97.3 percent of the vote, Randy Johnson (1989-09) overwhelmingly won election to the Baseball Hall of Fame Tuesday in his first time on the ballot, topping a 2015 class that also includes Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio. Another former Mariner, Edgar Martinez, again came up short, but experienced a slight uptick in support.
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In 1997, the Mariners conducted an impromptu promotional event, asking fans to arrive at the Kingdome garbed as their favorite players. Around 4:30 one mid-summer afternoon, dozens of Randy Johnson look-alikes began filtering into the Dome. A few of them, replete with shoulder-length mullets, were pretty close to dead ringers for the Big Unit, though none matched his 6-foot-10 stature.
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There are numerous reasons why the Seahawks (12-4) will enter the playoffs two weeks hence as the NFC’s No. 1 seed. But the main one is that during their regular season-ending, six-game winning streak, they allowed opponents only three touchdowns -- or one every eight quarters, and 39 points. To borrow a phrase used Sunday by Pete Carroll after the 20-6 win over the Rams, “That’s frickin’ awesome.”
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What every NFC team feared most came to pass Sunday: The Seahawks won the NFC West title with a tooth-pull, 20-6 victory over the St. Louis Rams and earned the conference's No. 1 seed. With Green Bay's 30-20 victory over Detroit, they sewed up home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. Following a bye next weekend, the Seahawks need two home wins to reach Super Bowl XLVIX.
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In late October, Pac-12 media members, assembled in San Francisco, predictably selected Arizona to finish first in the conference basketball race. At the same time, they also forecast that the Washington Huskies would wind up sixth, a not-unexpected vote given that UW lost leading scorer C.J. Wilcox to the NBA and has been a program gripped by inertia for the past three seasons.
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Over the past year, the Seahawks have signed six of their best defensive players – CB Richard Sherman, FS Earl Thomas, SS Kam Chancellor, DL Michael Bennett, LB K.J. Wright and DE Cliff Avril -- to contracts worth a guaranteed $132.7 million (and a lot more than that on paper). Still in line for a new deal is LB Bobby Wagner, whose return to the lineup following a five-game injury absence is a major reason why Seattle again roosts atop the NFL statistical heap.
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Last thing anyone – you, me, and Las Vegas swamis -- expected from the Seahawks Sunday night, especially against one of the best defenses in the NFL, and on the road, was a 300-yard passer, nearly two 100-yard rushers, two 100-yard receivers, an 80-yard catch-and-run by a tight end who outraced a safety for more than half the field, and a near-repeat of Beast Quake.
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Defying oddsmakers who had them favored by eight points, the Seahawks rolled up a franchise-record 596 yards and delivered another stunning defensive performance in overwhelming the Arizona Cardinals 35-6 Sunday night at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, AZ. The fifth consecutive win gave them first place in the NFC West and set them up for a chance at homefield advantage throughout the playoffs.
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After the Seahawks opened as seven-point road favorites over Arizona, the spread increased to eight as soon as Cardinals Coach Bruce (Almighty) Arians named maligned Ryan Lindley as his starting quarterback for Sunday night’s game at University of Phoenix Stadium. Lindley swabbed in relief of the injured Drew Stanton last week in St. Louis. He has quarterbacked only one NFL win on his own, a 38-10 victory over Detroit Dec. 16, 2012.
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After losing to Kansas City at Arrowhead 24-20 last month, and with a gauntlet of NFC West foes plus NFC East leader Philadelphia looming, the Seahawks looked ripe to become the third consecutive defending Super Bowl champion to fail to reach the postseason. Even though the Seahawks were 6-4 Nov. 16 after losing to the Chiefs, the task ahead seemed too daunting to overcome.
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The oddsmakers had it nailed after all, although in tapping the Seahawks to win by 10 points they probably didn't figure on Seattle blowing two prime scoring chances in the first half and receiving a gift call from the officials in the second. The latter virtually ensured a 17-7 victory Sunday at Century Link Field over San Francisco that eliminated the 7-7 49ers from the postseason.
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Rod Belcher, whose sports broadcasting career spanned the early 1940s through the late 1980s, died Friday at 94. Belcher helped pioneer major league baseball radio play-by-play in the Seattle market in the mid-1940s, and later covered the careers of such local athletic icons as Hugh McElhenny, Don Heinrich, Bob Houbregs, the O'Brien twins (Johnny and Eddie) and Elgin Baylor.
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