The Seahawks make their shortest road trip of the season next week, nine miles down I-405. But it will take them into the 21st Century.

The amenities of the palatial Virginia Mason Athletic Center, their new home, serve as an example of how undersized and obsolete their Kirkland headquarters had become.

Since 1986, the Seahawks headquarters has been on the campus of Northwest University (formerly Northwest College).

Situated up a side road in a residential neighborhood, with the fields encircled by trees, and the front doors bordered with hydrangeas that bloomed in the team colors, this facility was quiet and private. Homey, in a way.

While football players and coaches are not generally the types overtaken by wistful recollections, some will carry good memories of years at the old place.

Mack Strong arrived as an undrafted free agent in 1993 and played for the Hawks until an injury last season forced retirement. Wednesday, he was on the sidelines taping segments for his television work with Fox Sports Northwest.

“It will be really nostalgic for me personally because I spent my whole career here in this one facility,” Strong said. “I made it through two owners, three coaches and hundreds of teammates. There’s a lot of good memories from out on these field. This is where I really grew as a player and as a person.”

Strong never had a problem with the facilities or the fields, and had been impressed with how much expanding and renovating the franchise had done on the existing structure.

Another fan of the place is assistant head coach/offensive coordinator Gil Haskell, who has come to work every day at the Kirkland office since Mike Holmgren took over the program in 1999.

Haskell said he remembers when he started in the coaching business and there was little more than a nail in the wall to hang your clothes on. So, he never saw many shortcomings with the Kirkland headquarters, either.

“I’m going to miss this place, I really am,” Haskell said. “The facility is small, but it still works. The thing is, everybody’s together and it makes it a great camaraderie-type place. You’ve got all these trees around … nobody knows you’re here. It’s a wonderful neighborhood; they don’t bother us and we don’t bother them.”

Haskell and Strong agreed on one aspect of the place they won’t miss: The Bubble. It was the air-supported structure that provided shelter for practicing inside during the cold months.

“You’d go in there, and it smelled awful, and everybody had a cold in a couple weeks because of all the mildew on the walls,” Haskell said.

Strong remembered the one fall when a storm blew down the bubble.

“We had to drive down to the Kingdome (for practice) and it was like a field trip for everybody,” he said. “We had to load up in our own cars, driving down there with all our pads on. Some guys wore their helmets when they were driving.”

Strong remembers how often the power would go out during windstorms, leaving the players to take cold showers and dress in the dark.

During Strong’s early years, training camp was held in Kirkland, and players stayed in the Northwest College dorms that had no air conditioning, leaving him to “wake up most mornings in a pool of sweat.”

And at times, rather than going to the cafeteria, players would just make runs to the local burger joints.

He also remembers those years when safety Eugene Robinson used to spend the time between practices working on his saxophone playing, which could be heard all across the campus.

This is my 20th season covering the Seahawks, and easily the most memorable moment for me was the time owner Ken Behring arrived at a training camp practice in a helicopter. A helicopter that landed on the practice field. And this was while the famously tough Chuck Knox was trying to conduct practice.

Players and staff had to break off their drills to scurry off to the other side of the field. Knox went and greeted the owner with a look that seemed lethal.

Behring’s son David often was seen jogging around the fields, in the weight room, or running sprints up a hill covered with artificial turf. It was like a very expensive health club membership his father had bought for him.

And, of course, this was the building from where the moving vans arrived when Behring tried to relocate the team to California. The moving vans aren’t traveling as far this time.

“There was a little of everything out there,” Strong said from the sidelines of fields that will be fallow this time next week. “There were the dog days of summer, the disappointing seasons that you just had to grind through, there was the Super Bowl season …

“Really, there was a lot of blood, a lot of sweat … and a lot of great memories.”

Dave Boling: 253-597-8440

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