The 12th Man: Mama Blue, the Grande Dame of the Seahawks superfans
Jan 28, 2014, 7:37 AM | Updated: 9:56 am
No discussion of Seahawks superfans can begin until you bring up Mama Blue. We close our in depth look at the 12th Man with the woman who started it all.
It can take Mama Blue several hours to make it from her personal parking spot outside CenturyLink Field to her seats in the south endzone on most game days because fans all want a picture or just say hi to the Grande Dame of the Seahawks.
Mama Blue, known without her trademark blue wig, sparkly glasses, feather boa and fake eyelashes as Patti Hammond, moves pretty good for an 83-year-old.
But the moving is hard to do because she is mobbed everywhere she goes.
Without Mama Blue, there is no Seahulk or Mr. Love. She is the matriarch of the Seahawks superfans.
A season ticket holder since year one with her husband Dick, though she admits she knew nothing about the game then.
“I was a cheerleader in high school, he was a football player at Roosevelt – and you know, we loved football. I didn’t understand it but I said oh well!” recounts Mama Blue. “And so, when I found out we were going to get an NFL team, I thought, ‘What a great present for his birthday!’ I had my beauty shop down on 5th Avenue so I bought the first season tickets in Kingdome, and the rock’n’roll from then on, honey.”
Mama Blue became such a staple of fandom at the Kingdome that she was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame as a fan in 1999 and in 2007 she became the first fan to raise the 12th Man flag at Qwest Field, which of course, is now CenturyLink.
“I feel so blessed because, why me? Except you know, I’m a little old lady, I make a lot of noise, and I love the Seahawks – so why not me?”
The Seahawks gave her the choice of any seats in the stadium, and she chose the first six seats out of the tunnel so that her face will be the first the team sees coming out of the locker room.
It’s a bond that that has extended beyond the football field, “Dave Craig wants me to be his mom. He said, ‘Can you be my mom?’ I can be your mom. I can be everybody’s grandma, and I can be the little guys’ great grandma, you know what I mean? I love it.”
She recently stole a kiss from Russell Wilson.
The one downside for Mama Blue is that she can’t share this Super Bowl run with her husband. He passed away in 2007, but she knows Tricky Dick, as she calls him, was there during the title game.
“I have tears of joy. I just wish Tricky here,” she said as Seahawks won the NFC title on January 18. “But oh well, he’s here, because he coached today, my granddaughters and I are all crying, but that’s okay, it’s good tears. I love it.”
And she has no plans of stopping.
“I love it! This is the next best thing to show business, isn’t it? I’ve been a hairdresser for 60-some years, still working two days a week, and like my customers say, they don’t care how good their hair is – they just come for the entertainment.”
Mama Blue recently shot a commercial with Russell Wilson and will soon be made into a Lego figure.
