Well, by now you might have noticed that THE SEATTLE SEAHAWKS WON SUPER BOWL XLVIII!  Several times a day I tell myself this and it never gets old, it never will.  They say XLVIII means “48” but I say it means “Super Large Victory” followed by the number “3” – the jersey number of our fearless and ever-positive quarterback Russell Wilson.  The sports media and “experts” are spinning in circles trying to understand how our team completely dismantled the greatest offense the NFL has ever seen, but here in the Pacific Northwest we expected the outcome.  Seattle is really on a roll with a Super Bowl victory, a Grammy for Macklemore and Ryan Lewis  (yes they deserved it), a beautiful sunny winter and David Stern retiring over the weekend (time to bring back the Sonics!).  Anyway, the mania I wrote about in the last post has swelled to a full-blown “sea” change.  People who didn’t pay a whit of attention to sports are now walking around wearing the blue and green and saying team slogans like “Why not us?”, “There is a King in every crowd,” “Always Compete,” “I’m in,” and now “What’s Next?!”  Some are reading every article they can find on the team and learning about the intricacies of the Pistol formation, the Read Option and Cover Zero.  After a discussing the Seahawk’s winning formula with a non-sports friend he said they are the “Northwest Mystic” version of sports philosophy.

After the game we went downtown to experience the best “rioting” the West Coast has to offer – basically a giant love fest of horn honking, street dancing and endless hugs and high-fives with total strangers.  We were blasting the song of the moment “This Ain’t A Seahawks Anthem” by Prometheus Brown and Lisette made a great video.  Then came yesterday’s big parade through downtown Seattle where we celebrated further and hoped to catch a glimpse of the victors.  I went with my son, his friend and my brother.  It took 3 hours just to get there and we walked several miles in frigid temps, all worth it of course!

Russell, your dad was right, why not you?  And yes, I saw 700,000 Kings in the crowd on the streets of Seattle yesterday!

I wasn’t there to take photos but I got a few worth sharing.  Here is a selection from victory night and the parade.  See the full Seahawks Parade gallery here.

And one more thing.  I had several layers on yesterday with my Marshawn Lynch jersey over my coat.  When I finally got home I just left it all on.  When it was time for bed I finally took that jersey off and it was so hard to do, the emotion of the week finally caught up with me and I didn’t want to let go….  I know it is just a game, but it is really so much more than that.  And it feels so good to be one of the 12s this week.

Downtown party bus –

SeaSkull? –

Skittles Skittles everywhere! –

Except in the store –

Throwback Steve Largent jersey with the hair to match –

The crowd amasses and climbs ever higher for a vantage point –

Many thousands line 2nd Avenue near Qwest Field –

Richard Sherman, Marshawn Lynch (throwing Skittles and playing a Lummi hand drum), Breno Giacomini and Russell Okung work the crowd –

The Boeing 12th Man/Seahawks 747 buzzes the city –

Overflow crowd in Safeco Field watches the ceremony after the parade –

The 12th Man flag flies above Starbucks world headquarters –

Throwback logo on a coat worn by a long-time fan –