Hawks Don’t Ring Up Easley To Honor Him

As he wiggled back into his chair after making one last raid through the buffet line in the Indian Canyon Golf Course cafeteria Friday, Ken Easley’s thoughts were a long way from Seattle.

It was a warm, brilliant afternoon, the former all-pro strong safety for the Seahawks was about to tee it up in the fourth annual Easley Celebrity Classic golf tournament that bears his name.

Golf, not football, is Easley’s passion these days. He plays to a 3-handicap and participates in celebrity events whenever his duties as a father of three and owner of a Lynnwood Cadillac dealership afford him the time.

“I’d play in a lot more if I had the opportunity,” Easley said. “But it’s been difficult for me to get away for any long periods of time.”

Still, Easley manages to free himself long enough to host his own tournament each year in Spokane. This year’s 54-hole amateur event moves to Downriver today and The Creek at Qualchan Sunday.

Easley plans to make the most of another opportunity to hang with some of his old Seahawks teammates, here as celebrities this weekend.

According to Easley, he doesn’t see much of his former NFL teammates these days.

“Obviously, when I’m afforded an opportunity like this, I take full advantage of it,” he said. “But I don’t see them that often anymore.”

Not surprisingly, Easley has even less to do with his former team.

He seems a bit reluctant, at first, to discuss his current relationship with the Seahawks organization, of which he filed a lawsuit after his splendid NFL career was short-circuited by kidney problems.

According to the lawsuit Easley filed against the Seahawks franchise and its team doctors shortly after he retired in 1987, the kidney damage that forced him to undergo transplant surgery in 1990 was caused, in part, by the large amounts of Advil prescribed to help ease the pain of a lingering ankle injury.

The suit was eventually dismissed after the team agreed not to challenge Easley’s application for workman’s compensation. Easley agreed to settle out of court with team doctors and the drug company that manufactures Advil.

Apparently, however, all was not forgotten - nor forgiven.

Easley, when pressed about the issue, claims to harbor no malevolence toward the Seahawks.

“It was unfortunate, the way I got out of the game,” he admitted. “But it was time for me to go. I was mentally, physically and emotionally ready to get out, so it wasn’t difficult for me to sever my ties with the game.

“I can’t speak as to how they feel about me, but I’ve never held any animosity toward them.”

Seahawks officials have never publicly declared any disdain for Easley because of his lawsuit.

But Easley’s conspicuous absence from the franchise’s Ring of Honor seems to suggest otherwise.

Members of the ultraexclusive group are former players Steve Largent, Jim Zorn, Dave Brown and Curt Warner, and play-by-play announcer Pete Gross.

Easley, a five-time Pro Bowler, would seem to be a natural candidate for enshrinement, but he said he has never been contacted about such an honor.

“And quite honestly, it’s not really that important to me,” he said with no apparent bitterness.

As a member of college football’s hall of fame and one of only seven former UCLA players to have their jerseys retired, Easley doesn’t feel he needs induction into the Ring of Honor to validate his career.

“And to be honest with you - and I’ve never told this to anyone besides my closest friends - my best football was played at UCLA,” Easley said, explaining he felt he was miscast as a strong safety with the Hawks.

“I came out of college as the best free safety in the country and was immediately moved to strong safety. That move has never been explained to me and I’ve since given up on trying to find out why.

“But for them to put me in the Ring of Honor is unimportant to me, because I didn’t play my best football for them and, in my mind’s own eye, I don’t deserve it.”

Only when asked if he would ultimately accept an invitation to be inducted should the Seahawks offer, does Easley allow any hint of bitterness to surface.

“I’d have to think about that,” he said. “I’d have to think about it seriously because of all the considerations of my family and my young children and what significance it might hold for them.

“But if I were single and by myself, I wouldn’t even consider it.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo