Presented by COLTRIN CENTRAL VAC.

This Day In Sports…December 5, 1974, 50 years ago today:

The NFL officially awards a team to Seattle for the future Seahawks upon the signing of the franchise agreement. The price tag was $16 million for Seattle Professional Football Inc., a group led by Lloyd W. Nordstrom of Nordstrom department store fame. Then came the naming of the team, and the contest for it drew more than 20,000 entries and 1,700 different names. The winning “Seahawks” moniker was announced in June, 1975. The first coach, Jack Patera, was hired in June, 1976, while the team’s first draft pick was defensive tackle Steve Niehaus out of Notre Dame. 

The Seahawks would debut in the Seattle Kingdome on August 1, 1976, with an exhibition game against the San Francisco 49ers. Inspired by the skills of new players such as Jim Zorn and Steve Largent, fans didn’t seem to care much that the team lost its first five regular season games. Seattle, pairing the Seahawks with the Sonics and with the Mariners on the horizon, was a true big league city at last. The Seahawks finally broke through in Game 6 with a 13-10 win over their expansion mates, the Bucs, but they’d finish that first season 2-12.

By their third season, however, the Seahawks posted their first winning season at 9-7. But they didn’t appear in their first playoff game until 1983 after another 9-7 campaign. Seattle, with coach Chuck Knox in his first year and led by Largent, quarterback Dave Krieg, rookie running back Curt Warner, and even former Boise State fullback David Hughes, was a Cinderella that season. The Seahawks took down the Denver Broncos in the Wild Card game before beating the Miami Dolphins in the divisional round. The ‘Hawks finally lost to the eventual Super Bowl champion L.A. Raiders in the AFC Championship Game.

Little-remembered fact: the Seahawks are the only NFL team to have changed conferences twice. They came into the league with Tampa Bay in 1976 and began play in the NFC West while the Buccaneers toiled in the AFC East. Then the two teams switched conferences in 1977, and Seattle became a fixture in the AFC West. The Seahawks returned to the NFC West in 2001. Furthermore, they’re the only team ever to play in both the AFC and NFC Championship Games. Seattle has, of course, been to three Super Bowls (all as a member of the NFC) and won one—in Super Bowl 43.

(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)

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