To fully appreciate the embarrassment of riches that currently exists in Seattle sports, you need to recall how grim it once was.
Remember the monstrosity otherwise known as 2008? If you’re smart, you’ve fully repressed that memory, but allow me to make you retroactively shudder:
- The Husky football team under Tyrone Willingham went 0-12, the worst season in their history and the only winless team in college football that season.
- The Mariners became the first MLB team to have a $100 million payroll and lose 100 games. That was the year they signed Carlos Silva to a four-year, $48 million deal and traded Adam Jones and others to Baltimore for Erik Bedard, to re-trigger your gag reflex. And then swept the Padres in the final series of the season to lose a chance to draft Stephen Strasburg.
- The Seahawks, under lame-duck coach Mike Holmgren, went 4-12 to pave the way for the glorious Jim Mora era — that lasted all of one season. At least all that losing yielded the No. 4 overall draft pick in 2009 … which turned into, gulp, Aaron Curry.
- The unkindest cut of all: The Sonics in July of ’08 up and left for Oklahoma City, leaving a hole in the region’s collective heart that still hasn’t healed.
“Sports in this city are just terrible,” a rabid fan named Anthony Ray — better known as Sir Mix-A-Lot — told The New York Times, one of a multitude of national outlets that swooped in that year to document the sporting misery in Seattle. “Has another city ever done this bad?”
That’s a matter of conjecture. But right now, few cities are doing better. So let’s take a few minutes to savor how good things are going.
The Husky football team followed a miserable 2021 season with an 11-2 campaign under new coach Kalen DeBoer, capped by seven consecutive wins to close the season. They were ranked No. 8 in the final Associated Press Top 25 poll and, with a steady succession of key players announcing their return in 2023 — including Heisman Trophy candidate Michael Penix Jr. — they have a fighting chance to contend for a spot in the national playoffs.
The Seahawks just finished a season for which doom was predicted in the wake of the Russell Wilson trade, but instead a playoff berth resulted. With four picks in the top 52 in April’s NFL draft, it’s possible to envision a prosperous future that seemed in the distance past last March.
The Mariners are coming off their first playoff berth since 2001, which featured a rousing sweep of the Blue Jays in the wild-card round after coming back from an 8-1 fifth-inning deficit in the clinching game. With spring training less than a month away, hopes are soaring, despite some fan disenchantment over the offseason moves.
The Kraken, a team that didn’t even exist in 2008 — or for more than a decade afterward — have been one of the surprise teams in the NHL in Year 2. They are firmly on a path to the Stanley Cup playoffs, with all the intensity and excitement that venerated tournament entails. What’s more, the lavish rebuild of Climate Pledge Arena provides a venue for what is looking increasingly like the eventual return of the NBA — a matter of “when,” not “if.”
The Sounders — another team that didn’t exist in 2008, at least in its MLS incarnation — are about to compete in the prestigious men’s Club World Cup in Morocco. They earned a spot in May by becoming the first MLS team to win the CONCACAF Champions League — the peak achievement in the league’s history. The Sounders are one win from a matchup with Real Madrid, one of the sport’s titans.
Meanwhile, OL Reign — which came into existence in 2012 — just found out that star winger Megan Rapinoe will be back for her 11th season with the Reign. The Reign have designs on their first title after entering the playoffs last year as the No. 1 seed before losing in the semis to the Kansas City Current.
The Storm have been a consistent fount of success and have provided four WNBA championships since 2004. Last year ended in a disappointing loss in the semifinals to eventual champion Las Vegas — which also marked the end of Sue Bird’s brilliant career. The Storm figure to be a top title contender again — provided they retain superstar Breanna Stewart, an unrestricted free agent who will be in hot demand.
That’s an awful lot of positivity for one city. I won’t go so far as to call it a Golden Era, because we’ve all seen how cyclical these things can be. Let’s just call it a Golden Moment in Time, and savor it while it lasts.
Just think of the influx of young talent in this season alone. Charismatic Mariners outfielder Julio Rodriguez flashed in a fashion not seen since the days of Ken Griffey Jr. and was the runaway American League Rookie of the Year. He could be followed in the NHL version of that award — the Calder Memorial Trophy — by the Kraken’s Matty Beniers. The Seahawks have two finalists for the NFL Rookie of the Year awards, one on each side of the ball — running back Kenneth Walker III and cornerback Tariq Woolen.
Mind you, all this doesn’t mean it’s nonstop triumph in Seattle sports. There are the usual setbacks and bitter defeats, the second-guessable management decisions and cases of maddening underachievement by select athletes and teams.
It’s just that compared with what had been the norm, the current sporting landscape, even with the intermittent eyesores, is a site for sore psyches.