Possible Meeting With Behring Churns Up Conflicting Reports

Key figures said it was unlikely that a potential Seattle Seahawks buyer would meet with owner Ken Behring this weekend.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, citing unnamed sources, reported Saturday the two sides planned to meet in Palm Springs, Calif.

But Metropolitan King County Council member Peter von Reichbauer said Saturday in a telephone interview: “I don’t anticipate a meeting this weekend in Palm Springs at all.”

A source close to members of the Seahawks organization, however, told The Spokesman-Review that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, considered the most logical prospective buyer of the team, was either in Palm Springs to meet with Behring or was being represented there by an associate.

Further efforts by Allen to purchase the team might also bring with it the installation of former Seahawks coach Chuck Knox as team president, the source said.

Knox and Allen reportedly were friends when the coach ran the team in the 1980s. Knox has a home in Palm Springs.

Also, the source said that a possibility exists that, under new ownership, the team might be renamed the Washington Seahawks, to recognize the fan base across the state.

Team president David Behring confirmed Friday his father was headed to his home in Palm Springs, but said it was for a vacation.

“I don’t know of him meeting anyone this weekend. This is just another rumor,” the younger Behring said from his Northern California office. Ken Behring, who two weeks ago announced he was moving the team to Southern California, has said the team is not for sale.

Von Reichbauer told the county’s Kingdome Renovation Task Force on Friday he still talks to Behring every day about a sale plan. “He wouldn’t do it (continue talking) if there were no reason,” von Reichbauer said.

“I think that there are interested parties that want to get together in a quiet process of negotiations,” he told the Associated Press on Saturday. “I don’t think any private party wants to be negotiating in public about how they’re going to be spending their private money.”

The P-I said the potential buyer is widely reported to be Allen, who has had representatives examining the team’s finances for several weeks.

Allen’s spokeswoman, Susan Pierson, declined comment Friday on whether her boss was headed to Palm Springs or had recent talks with Behring.

Any new owner would demand that the county promise to fix up the Kingdome, the paper reported, quoting local sports boosters.

Since announcing that he was moving the state’s NFL team to the Los Angeles area because the Kingdome was unsafe and no longer a first-class stadium, Behring has faced a barrage of lawsuits filed by state and local officials and citizens with the announced intention of forcing him to sell the team to a Seattle-area buyer.

Hawks sign Williams

Robert Blackmon is designated as the Seahawks’ franchise player, but Darryl Williams might put him on the bench. Williams, the starting free safety for the Cincinnati Bengals, agreed to a four-year, $7.125 million contract that includes a $1.65 million signing bonus with the Seahawks.

Because he could play free or strong safety, Williams puts Blackmon in limbo while Seahawks coach Dennis Erickson sorts out a secondary overloaded with safeties.

Blackmon and Eugene Robinson are Pro Bowl-caliber players, but Blackmon is asking for more than $2 million a year. Williams played at a Pro Bowl level for a bad Bengals team for a couple of years and was intrigued playing for Erickson, his coach at the University of Miami.

Williams isn’t the only former Hurricane high on Erickson’s list. Leigh Steinberg’s office reveals the Seahawks are heavily recruiting Dallas defensive tackle Russell Maryland, who hopes to sign a contract by Wednesday.

Seattle defensive tackle Cortez Kennedy is one of Maryland’s best friends.

, DataTimes