Open door when Knox knocks
SEATTLE — The Seahawks scored an impressive win over San Francisco and quarterback Dave Krieg gained admission to the team’s Ring of Honor, but the loudest cheer of the day may have accompanied the introduction of a graying, 72-year-old gentleman who was there to support Krieg.
Coach Chuck Knox.
The situation seemed to run counter to logic, that it certainly would make more sense for Krieg, and dozens of other former Seahawk players, to be there celebrating Knox’s induction.
No knock on Krieg. He deserves the recognition. He had a lengthy and mostly successful career with the Seahawks, and the fans who once booed him offered enthusiastic cheers on Sunday, proving that time heals all fumbles.
But Knox, above all others, was responsible for a span in the 1980s that still stands as the Seahawks’ Golden Age. He gave this team respectability, dignity, competitive legitimacy and a tree-bark toughness that reflected his personality.
The Seahawks, at their best, were a product of Knox’s savvy and forceful personality. If they’re going to have a Ring of Honor, Knox needs to be in it, and soon.
The Seahawks surely grasp this. Those directing community outreach these days have done an excellent job of reconnecting with a fan base that was alienated by the penurious Ken Behring regime and serial mediocrity on the field.
The Seahawks had been entertaining in their infancy, but Knox coaxed them out of the larval stage by taking a team that had been 14-27 in the three preceding seasons and leading it to a 9-7 record and a playoff appearance in 1983.
In that first year, they advanced to the AFC title game. Of the three playoff games the Seahawks have won in franchise history, Knox coached all of them. In nine seasons, he collected 80 wins.
His finest coaching job might have been the one that got him fired — okay, the term they used was “mutually agreed upon” resignation. In 1991, Knox took a team with four- or five-win talent, tops, and got seven wins out of it.
An example of the loyalty and respect he engendered among his players arose in training camp that year. Reggie McKenzie, a former Knox player and assistant at the time, took offense at one media member’s projection that the talent-poor Hawks would finish with a 5-11 record.
McKenzie cornered the writer on the sidelines and announced that no Knox team here would ever finish with a five-win record. He was right. Knox, improbably, got seven that season.
Knox, whose aching back has been surgically “repaired,” needed a chair to help him get through the on-field, half-time ceremonies for Krieg.
It reminded me of watching a training camp years ago when, after one of his surgeries, Knox was told to coach from a chair. During two-a-day sessions, an aide would walk around behind Knox with a chair. He never sat on it. Never.
Of course, he didn’t direct the helper to take the chair away, either. If the players happened to make note of what he thought was manly behavior, well, he wasn’t going to object to that. Tough is as tough does, after all.
They knew it already, however, as all had seen him spin his ballcap around backward, assume a perfectly balanced wide stance and stick his face into the sternum of a defender to demonstrate blocking technique. Still a very imposing man at the time, defenders often bore a look that revealed a genuine disinclination to mess with him.
Tough, oh yeah. One time during training camp, as the offense was on one field and the defense on the one adjacent, the recognizable thumping of helicopter rotors drew increasingly near. To Knox’s horror, owner Behring had his helicopter land on one of the fields, disrupting practice like you could only imagine.
When Knox saw this thing descending, he shot a look skyward so hostile it’s surprising the craft didn’t plummet immediately to the earth in a flaming wreck. But when the owner emerged, Knox acted with appropriate political and corporate restraint.
The guy should be in the Ring of Honor for not strangling the guy on the spot.
Others are deserving, too. How about the Nordstrom family for getting this franchise started with class and quality? Joe Nash played more games than any Hawk. Eugene Robinson, despite later indiscretions, made more tackles than any other Seahawk. Edwin Bailey, John L. Williams, heck, fans could name half a dozen more good candidates.
Cortez Kennedy will be ready soon, it would seem.
There is time to get around to all of those. But they should honor Knox soon.