Hawk Qb Friesz Hopes Vote Keeps Him In Seattle

It hasn’t been quite like game-day butterflies, but John Friesz has had a twinge in his stomach recently fretting about the Seahawks’ future in Seattle.

Tuesday’s voting returns on a proposed new Seahawks stadium did little to alleviate the knot in Friesz’s midsection.

With about 92 percent of precincts reporting, the measure was ahead slightly (51 percent yes, 49 percent no), but the outcome was still too close to call.

“My wife and I voted absentee,” said Friesz, the Hawks starting quarterback who was learning results by dialing in a Seattle TV station via DirectTV at his off-season home near Hayden Lake. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. It’s very important to me.”

Why? Consider that Friesz came into the NFL as a sixth-round draft pick in 1990, a relative unknown from the University of Idaho. He was the fifth quarterback on the San Diego Chargers’ depth chart as a rookie.

Slowly, Friesz earned a roster spot and eventually became a starter. Later in his career, with the Washington Redskins and Seahawks, Friesz mostly backed up high-priced, first-round draft picks.

Last year, though, Friesz won the Seahawks’ starting job - the team he’s followed since he was a youth in Coeur d’Alene.

Friesz wants to play before family and friends in the Northwest. That’s what his heart tells him, anyway.

His pragmatic side tells a different tale.

“If you have any years of experience in the NFL, you understand how much of a business it is,” Friesz said. “This is different maybe - it’s usually more about contracts and people getting cut because they make too much money.

“Some players don’t care. Their homes aren’t in Seattle. If their jobs take them to Cleveland or Los Angeles, that’s where they go. For others who have kids in first or second grade… I bought a house over there a couple months ago. There are a lot of reasons why it’s a perfect fit for me.”

If the stadium referendum doesn’t pass, it’s expected that prospective owner Paul Allen will walk away and full ownership likely would return to California developer Ken Behring. He tried to move the Seahawks to Anaheim last year but was blocked because of terms of the team’s Kingdome lease.

Allen has said he would purchase the Seahawks only if a new open-air stadium were built. He pledged roughly $100 million toward the $425 million price tag for the stadium/ exhibition center.

Seahawks insiders presume Behring will sell or relocate the franchise, possibly to Cleveland or Los Angeles.

The thought of losing the Seahawks triggers deep emotions in Brenda Hawkins, president of the Spokane Seahawkers booster group.

“I’m very afraid to lose our team,” said Hawkins, who has seen every game in franchise history in person or on TV. “I don’t think we’ll ever get another team in the Pacific Northwest and this team is truly a Pacific Northwest team. We have Seahawkers in California, Alaska, all over.

“I don’t think people realize what they’d be losing.”

Hawkins spent Tuesday with about 14 others working the phone bank at the Spokane office of the stadium-backing Our Team Works.

“I knew it was going to be close,” she said. “I have a positive outlook.”

Friesz echoed those thoughts, hoping “yes” voters will rally.

“The people who would enjoy the new stadium are the ones who are using it. It’s a user tax, that’s the thing I feel comfortable about. I have a problem with the people who are anti-everything.”

Also tugging at Friesz is the fact that the Hawks have made prominent off-season moves that seem to have strengthened the team.

“The pieces are there,” he said. “We just need to come together as a team. If we can unite, it would be exciting to see how far this team can go.”

Even though that unity might ultimately develop in a different city.

, DataTimes