Harger: Why the Seahawks Super Bowl run matters even if you don’t care about football

I was driving around yesterday. Auburn, Lake Tapps, Sumner, or Milton. Everywhere I looked, there it was. Green and blue. The 12 flags flying from porches and pickup trucks, and those little clip-on car window things that somehow never fall off on the freeway.

For the fourth time in 20 years, the Seattle Seahawks are headed to the Super Bowl.

I know not everyone cares about football. Some of you are already scrolling past. But stay with me for a second, because this isn’t really about football.

We all want to be part of something

I’ve been noticing something. People who don’t normally care about the game are getting into it. Not because they suddenly understand what a nickel package is, but because they want to be part of something. They want to wear the jersey. They want to say “we” when they talk about Sunday. They want to belong to something bigger than themselves for a little while.

Think about where we were less than four months ago. The Mariners made a deep playoff run. Game 7 of the ALCS. One game from the World Series. For a few weeks, this whole region came together. Strangers cheering at gas stations. People wearing navy blue who couldn’t name three players on the roster. It didn’t matter. We were all pulling in the same direction.

And now here we are again. Different sport, same feeling.

I’ve seen tough times around here. Times when the teams stink and we’re at each other’s throats about everything else. Politics, traffic, whether 52 degrees counts as cold. This is not one of those times.

Don’t get me wrong. There are still vigorous, pointed disagreements about politics. Nobody’s pretending those went away, but something shifts when the whole region has a reason to cheer together. You see someone in a Seahawks hat, and you nod. You don’t ask who they voted for, you don’t care. For a moment, they’re just your neighbor. Your people. Part of the twelve.

That’s rare, and it’s worth protecting.

Hold onto this feeling

So here’s what I’m asking. When you’re about to go full blast online this week, when you’re ready to type something you’d never say to someone’s face, maybe pause. Remember that the person on the other end might be the same stranger you high-fived at the grocery store when Darnold hit JSN in the fourth quarter. Remember that we’re all carrying something. Remember that mutual humanity we found for a few hours on a Sunday.

Sports won’t solve our problems. I’m not naive, but it gives us something politics never will: permission to agree. Permission to be neighbors and to feel like a community again, even if it’s just for a few weeks.

The flags are flying. The city’s alive. For a little while, we get to remember what it feels like to want the same thing.

Let’s hold onto that, even after the final whistle blows.

Go Hawks.

Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here. 

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