Ice-man cometh: From St. Maries QB and Seahawks’ water boy, to top NFL executive, to now GM for XFL’s Seattle Sea Dragons, Randy Mueller quietly delivers

You may strain to believe this story, as the premise is pretty far-fetched.

It’s about a 17-year-old ball boy from some back-water burg in North Idaho who eventually becomes the general manager of an NFL team.

Total Disney, right?

But when you hear about this kid’s initiative and audacity, it doesn’t seem so implausible, and maybe it’s a lesson in how a person can become exceptional at a big job by mastering all the little jobs on the way up.

The kid: Randy Mueller. The team: Seattle Seahawks. The year: 1978.

Longtime fans of the Seahawks will remember Mueller’s eventual work in player personnel and football operations from the early ’80s through 1999.

The jewel in his resume at Seattle – although he always refuses to take individual credit for team developments – was negotiating a first-round pick from the Chicago Bears for underperforming quarterback Rick Mirer in 1997, and then drafting Hall of Fame tackle Walter Jones.

His first season after joining the New Orleans Saints as GM (2000), they won a division title and a playoff game, earning him NFL Executive of the Year honors. He later also served as GM for the Miami Dolphins and a senior exec with the Chargers.

More than anything, through it all, Mueller, 61, has been a survivor, serving three Seahawks owners and five coaches. He’s now the titular general manager for the Seattle Sea Dragons of the reconfigured XFL, whose season starts Sunday.

But to understand his path in football, you’ve got to go back to the improbable genesis.

A high-school quarterback at St. Maries, Mueller sent a letter to the Seahawks, whose training camp in those days was at Eastern Washington University in Cheney. While offering his services as a ball boy, he gave in to his mother’s urgings that he enclose his picture in his high school uniform.

Dorky, of course, but it caught somebody’s eye, and Mueller was offered $44 a week for ball-boy grunt work and an up-close chance to see how the pros operated.

Coach Jack Patera loved the isolation of Cheney, and the heat, when the winds scorched the scablands like an acetylene torch. Patera was adamantly old-school, particularly as he infamously disallowed water on the field – even though medical science and common sense had long proved that dehydration did not make football players tougher.

Enter Mueller, newly installed ball boy for the defensive back unit.

“The players would pay me five bucks each to fill my ball-bag with towels full of ice, and I would stand by the bag with my hands behind my back and they would come by and grab ice.”

Players would wipe their faces with the towels, which would conceal their munching on ice cubes.

Some might suggest that Mueller was risking his career by breaking Patera’s rules. Others might see him as offering humanitarian relief at a reasonable price. Either way, at that tender age, he already showed evidence of top-flight management potential.

Even as he continued to work summers with the Hawks, Mueller went on to play at Linfield College, quarterbacking the Wildcats to an NAIA Division II national championship, and being named title-game MVP. After that, he returned to the Seahawks and continued his steep vertical career trajectory.

“It made me who I am, starting out at a ball boy, when I was 17, and becoming the boss 20 years later,” he said.

His motto through the rise was: “Keep my mouth shut and make my boss look good.” Versatility also became crucial. One season he filled in as the quality-control coach when the regular was ill; another summer he stepped in as the video man.

As for scouting and personnel matters, it seemed as if he witnessed daily master classes.

“I got to sit in with Tom Catlin and Ralph Hawkins night after night,” he said of famous assistants. “(Former Bears head coach) Abe Gibron was our advance scout, who couldn’t write because of a surgery, so I wrote all the scouting reports for our opponents every week. All of that was before I ever got to do it all myself.”

The Sea Dragons are Mueller’s third stay with alternative football leagues, which were disrupted by the pandemic.

“To get to build a team from scratch is awesome,” Mueller said, whereas jumping into front-office jobs in the NFL is a matter of reshaping rosters that are already largely intact. “You can build it in the vision of your coaches and the schemes they want to run.”

Mueller’s team opens on the road against the D.C. Defenders in prime time on ESPN, and then returns to Lumen Field four days later for the first home game versus the St. Louis Battlehawks.

“I think (fans) will see some innovative rules on special teams that take account of player safety, and they’ll also see a wide-open attack because June Jones runs our offense,” he said.

Mueller collaborates again with Sea Dragons head coach Jim Haslett, who coached the Saints when he was there.

Between running football operations, Mueller has become a multiplatform media voice, spending three years as an analyst for ESPN, developing a website, a consulting business, and now teaming with former Spokesman-Review reporter Mike Sando on The Athletic’s popular “The Football GM” podcast.

“Randy brings a unique voice,” Sando said. “There’s just not that many people in media who have actually been the decision maker … who made the trades, the cuts and represented owners. He’s been with the owners and the ball boys and everything in between.”

In a business in which carnivorous roster-sharks might be the ones you notice making high-profile deals, Mueller always has been low-key and mannerly, without conspicuous ego. A team-builder.

“I think I’ve treated people right and not been out to further my own agenda,” he said. “I’m proud of that. I know it sounds corny, but I believe you’ve got to treat people right and still be willing to make the tough decisions. I’ve always honored the process. I like people and I like dealing with them.”

The infant Sea Dragons are lucky to have him.

As he showed in those early days, delivering contraband ice to overheated players, Mueller has always understood market demand and the value of delivering a satisfying product at a fair price.