Seahawks executive Gary Wright, original owner John Nordstrom remember Paul Allen

Those who knew and worked with Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen in the Seahawks organization remember the team owner as a dedicated, meticulous manager who turned the team into the success that it is today.

Allen passed away on Monday of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, just two weeks after announcing that the cancer he had battled in 2009 had returned.

“What an owner — if you were to dream up an owner, you’d dream up Paul Allen,” Seahawks executive Gary Wright told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson.

RELATED: Dori’s 2006 interview with Paul Allen

“He was, in my mind, the best owner in the league,” added John Nordstrom, the team’s original owner.

They credit Allen with saving the team back in the mid-1990s, when former owner Ken Behring was in the process of moving the Seahawks to Anaheim, CA. Wright called these days a “sad and low point in the franchise’s history, that something that was kind of a crown jewel would be taken out of this region and moved.”

“What he doesn’t get enough credit for is, he bought it right at the rock bottom,” Nordstrom said of Allen. “That was our very, very lowest point. And he came in and paid Behring double what Behring had paid.”

Nordstrom pointed out that Allen’s true love was basketball, not football.

“I told him, ‘I think at some point, you’re going to like football just as much as basketball,'” Norstrom laughed. “He said, ‘I don’t think so.'”

This fact just goes to show, however, that even if Allen himself was not the world’s biggest fan of football, he was willing to save the team to give something important back to the city he loved.

“They convince this gentleman [to buy the team], who, all he wanted to do was good for the community — I don’t think he had any interest in owning a pro football team,” Wright said.

“By gosh, he was willing — he was more than willing to save the team for the city,” Nordstrom said. “I’ve got to give him 100 percent of the credit.”

But Allen did not stop at just purchasing the team — as part of the deal in the transaction, he got the city to hold a referendum on whether or not to build a new stadium for the Seahawks. The vote passed, and the Seahawks left the Kingdome for Qwest Field, today known as CenturyLink Field.

Nordstrom recalled how “the amount of attention he gave to the team with all that other stuff going on” — meaning Allen’s numerous philanthropic projects around the world, such as his work fighting the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak and locating historic ships that had been sunk in battle — was astounding.

Allen still made the time and effort to take a very personal interest in the team. Nordstrom noted that Allen would shake the hand of each Seahawks player, “even after a loss.”

“I’ll tell you, that meant something,” Nordstrom said.

During Allen’s time as owner, the Seahawks went from a team that had barely been in the playoffs to one that advanced to the Super Bowl three times, with a win in 2014. Nordstrom praised Allen for “the way he made decisions.”

“He made them quickly and he made them positively and he was amazingly right when he made a decision to change from this person to this person, or this building to that building,” Nordstrom said.  “He was uncannily correct. I was really amazed, because I’ve been around a lot of people who will make about 50 percent good decisions and 50 percent shaky ones.”

Despite not coming from a background of football expertise, Allen’s meticulous attention to detail and strong work ethic created a team that knew how to win.

“He surrounded himself with good people, and then let them delegate and let them have their people do their job,” Wright said.

There is no confirmation yet on who will be the next to lead the team, but one fact is certain — whoever takes the reins will have incredibly large shoes to fill.

“If we get anybody in here to own the team that’s anywhere near close to Paul Allen, we are going to be very, very lucky,” Nordstrom said.

“His legacy will live absolutely forever, the things that he’s accomplished,” Wright said.

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