SEATTLE A PERFECT FIT FOR SEAHAWK WILLSON
Tight end had offers but sticks with a winner
The touchdown celebration has roots as incongruous as the Super Bowl champion who puts it on display in the end zone.
But that’s really the story of Seattle Seahawks tight end Luke Willson. He’s a study in the unexpected; a guy born in a small, southern Ontario town (LaSalle, pop. 16,000), who now stars for one of the National Football League’s biggest franchises, has played for the same team for his entire fiveyear career, and took his TD celebration from …
“Wayne Rooney,” he said. “Believe it or not, the idea of it came from … soccer.”
Yes, from futball to football. More constructive dissonance.
After scoring on a remarkable 77th-minute bicycle-kick strike against Man City in 2011, Rooney sprinted to the corner flag, then held his arms out “like God had come down and touched him,” Willson said, recounting the tale of watching the game with his dormmates at Rice University.
“We decided that whoever scored next year, that was going to be our move. The problem is, football touchdowns are a little more violent than beautiful football goals, and that’s when it became like the slam and the aggressive celebration.”
The best part of the story is Rooney hearing about Willson’s celebrations. The global superstar reached out to him on Twitter before Super Bowl XLVIII — “he said, ‘I hope to see my celebration tomorrow’ — then eventually met Willson when United used the Seahawks’ training ground before a Champions League match in Seattle.
Willson was in town this week promoting his youth football camp and fundraisers with 12 North, which run the weekend of June 23-25, starting with a charity golf tournament at Langley’s Redwoods Golf Course on Thursday, the camp and celebrity flag football game on Saturday, and a Haida Gwaii fishing excursion on Sunday.
The 6-5, 250-pound tight end has been with the Seahawks since 2013, one of the few players from his draft class still with his original team. He signed a one-year incentive-laden contract with a $1.8-million guaranteed in March, turning down more lucrative offers to stay in Seattle.
While his career totals of 74 catches for 976 yards and seven TDs are unexceptional, he’s also been playing behind Pro Bowlers Zach Miller and Jimmy Graham, and he’s got the talent to be a starter — like his 2014 game against the Arizona Cardinals showed, when he had 139 yards and two touchdowns.
“It was a combination of things,” he said of the decision to re-sign in Seattle.
“Football’s a short game. I want to play as long as I can. Being in a place like Seattle, where I know our trainers, I know our strength coaches, I know our coaches, I’m very comfortable there. And we win games.
“I didn’t really want to go to a team where, yeah, I got a little more money, but they didn’t care as much about winning.
“And you hear some horror stories about teams around the league where the players’ safety isn’t of the utmost importance. That’s not the case in Seattle. They want to win, and they take care of us.”
That winning mentality spilled into public view this week — as it so often has in the past — with reports of a major division in the locker-room, with Richard Sherman’s relationship with Russell Wilson being questioned — again.
The response has been the same from nearly every player, like Doug Baldwin asserted Tuesday, saying it’s a story about nothing, and Willson was no different.
“Our locker-room is different, but I definitely wouldn’t say it’s fractured. Pete (Carroll) does tell guys to be themselves,” he said.
“It’s kind of like one big family in the end. I’ve got two older brothers … and we had some pretty epic throwdowns when we were growing up. It’s kind of the same sort of thing.
“You compete, you’re going at each other, and tempers flare, but at the end of the day, you love these guys. The hard part is, if something happens, and nine times out of 10 it’s really blown out of proportion when it’s reported. It’s not that big of a deal; and if it is, we have closeddoor meetings and figure it out.”
The Seahawks open their season at Green Bay on Sunday, Sept. 10, and their first home game comes against the San Francisco 49ers a week later. Seattle lost to the Atlanta Falcons in the divisional round of the playoffs last year, a season after the infamous decision to throw the ball on the one-yard line against the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.
“It was weird. Last year did feel like a losing season ... and we won 10 games,” said Willson. “That in itself puts things in perspective for the standards we have for ourselves. Ten-win seasons are considered a fail for us. For us, it’s about being consistent and executing.
“We had great games last year, and games where we were sub-par. And if we do that, we’ll be right there at the end.”