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The Seattle Seahawks played their first NFL game in 1976, so it may be fitting that the year the team celebrates its 50th anniversary is the same year it's making an appearance in the Super Bowl.
But the team wasn't always the Seahawks. When the league announced that it would give its 28th NFL franchise to Seattle, the team didn't actually have a name yet. So, how exactly did the team come up with the team? It actually started with Seattle's legendary "12th man": the fans.
The Seahawks Get the Spotlight
The Seattle franchise decided to get fans involved early on by creating a contest to help with the new name for the team. But what the owners thought would be a fun little contest turned into a huge deal for football fans in the city.
The contest was announced in 1975 and drew more than 20,000 entries from fans with 1,741 different suggestions to choose from. Those involved with the team were stunned.
"It's overwhelming, simply overwhelming," said then-managing general partner Herman Sarkowsky about the contest. "We expected only about one-tenth this many entries."
In the end, there were 153 fans who submitted the winning entry that was chosen, and the team became the Seattle Seahawks.
Some of the entries, however, weren't as good. Fans contributed potential names from Aardvarks to Zodiacs, with team names like the Cloudbursts, Flounders, and Quicksands sprinkled in. Names starting with an "S" to match Seattle were the most popular, however, with Sourdoughs, Sasquatches, and Sardines among the many suggestions in addition to Seahawks.
Still, the success of the content inspired other new teams to get the fans involved in the naming process. In 1977, Major League Baseball awarded Seattle an expansion team, with team officials deciding to let the fans once again choose the name for their new local team. Out of 15,000 entries covering 600 different names, the team picked the Mariners as its moniker.
Seattle's Relationship With Fans
It probably comes as no surprise to Seahawks fans that they were chosen to help the team pick a name. After all, Seattle fans are well known for their loyalty.
In fact, the fans in Seattle have been nicknamed "The 12s" in a nod to how influential they are to the team on game day. The nickname is a reference to the 11 players that a team has on the field for game play, with the unofficial "12th man"—the fan—helping them out from the stands.
The team loves its fans so much that in 1984, the Seattle Seahawks retired the number 12 in honor of the fans, in a move that's usually reserved only for very significant players in the team's history. Seattle's fans even inspired the NFL to institute an excessive noise rule in 1989 in part because of how loud fans would get during Seattle home games.