Why Russell Wilson feels ‘my whole role now is to inspire other people who have been told no’
Russell Wilson rarely strays off script.
Ever self-disciplined, the Seahawks’ quarterback is excellent at staying on message, be it about his offense or teammates or the upcoming opponent.
This week it’s the Kansas City Chiefs. And so in his weekly press conference Thursday, Wilson, on cue, gushed on about young quarterback Patrick Mahomes and what a big challenge the 11-3 Chiefs will be Sunday night in the Seahawks’ next attempt to clinch a playoff spot.
“He’s pretty special,” Wilson said of Mahomes.
Mahomes, 23, is likely the NFL’s most valuable player this year in his first season as the Chiefs’ full-time starter. He’s thrown for 4,543 yards with 45 touchdowns and 11 interceptions through 14 games. He is, like Wilson, a former baseball player.
While talking about Mahomes on Thursday Wilson mentioned again his strong belief kids should buck today’s trend of specialization in sports. They should play as many as they want to and can.
In doing so, Wilson indirectly explained why he goes to Seattle Children’s hospital every Tuesday to offer encouragement to the sickest of sick kids. Why he projects relentlessly positivity on and off the field, regardless of circumstance.
And why he named his charitable organization the Why Not You Foundation.
“My whole role now is to inspire other people who have been told ‘No,’ or ‘You’re too small. You can’t do it. Look this way. Look that way,’” Wilson said.
“I heard that a lot.”
Wilson was especially insightful when asked how hard it was for him to continue playing baseball and football in a sports world that demands specialization.
His answer went on for 5 minutes, uninterrupted.
“Growing up, my parents always encouraged me to play multiple sports,” he said. “I was fortunate to go to The Collegiate School (his high school in Richmond, Va., Class of 2007) where we had to. It was actually mandatory that you had to do two sports. Really, two things: you could do theater or you could do a sport....
“For me, obviously, I loved sports. I played baseball, football, basketball, all that. ...So when I was growing up, I had many people tell me to focus on baseball. I played tons of AAU baseball. In Virginia, we played tripleheaders. We played three games in the summertime; we played in over 100 games in the summer. We were one of the top teams in the nation. Lot of people said focus on baseball.
“But I love this game of football.”
Wilson did not begin playing organized football in any league until junior high.
“Once I got into a league in seventh grade, it kind of changed my life in terms of perspective of where I wanted to go,” he said. “My dad had played for the (San Diego) Chargers (as a wide receiver) for a short period of time. My brother was in college playing football and baseball at the University of Richmond. It was something I really wanted to do, is play two sports.”
Wilson grew up idolizing two-sport stars such as Atlanta Falcons cornerback and major-league outfielder Deion Sanders plus Brian Jordan, a Falcons safety and an outfielder for four major-league teams from 1992-2006.
“I had several people tell me ‘no’ (to two sports) when I was young,” Wilson said. “But, really, when I was in college, that’s where it really kind of showed up more than anyplace else. Especially in college recruiting: ‘You can go play Major League Baseball and be a second-, third-rounder.’ Or ‘you can go to college and maybe you don’t play quarterback.’
“I heard that a lot: ‘Maybe just play outfielder, second base, shortstop, and then you can play two sports.’
“I was pretty set on what I wanted to do. I wanted to go to a place that I could play two sports—and I could play quarterback.”
He signed a scholarship offer from North Carolina State, a 2 1/2-hour drive from home in Richmond. His father was gravely ill at the time.
Harrison Wilson III passed away in 2010 at the age of 55 from complications from diabetes. That was after three years of fighting cancer, having a stroke and being in a coma for three weeks.
Russell Wilson graduated from N.C. State in three years. That left him with a fourth year of eligibility, his senior baseball season.
In the spring of 2011 Wilson was coming off leading the Atlantic Coast Conference with 3,563 yards passing and 28 touchdowns as a junior. N.C. State went 9-4 and won a bowl game. But Wolfpack football coach Tom O’Brien had prized quarterback recruit Mike Glennon, who was about to enter his junior year.
Wilson had been a fourth-round choice in the 2010 Major League Baseball draft by the Colorado Rockies. He played the summer of 2010 for the Tri-Cities Dust Devils, a Rockies Class-A affiliate in eastern Washington. He wanted to go to spring training with the Rockies, which would conflict with N.C. State spring football practices.
“Basically, the coach at the time (at N.C. State) told me to transfer, told me to go play baseball,” Wilson said Thursday of O’Brien.
“I didn’t want to do that yet.”
So Wilson transferred to Wisconsin.
After learning the Badgers’ offensive playbook in 21 days—self-taught, because NCAA rules prohibited coach contact in July —Wilson played one football season at Wisconsin as a graduate transfer. He led the Badgers to the Rose Bowl.
Months after that, the Seahawks selected him in the third round of the 2012 NFL draft. He’s been their franchise, Super Bowl-winning quarterback ever since, and he has them one win away from returning to the NFC playoffs for the sixth time in the seven years he’s been in Seattle.
“By the time I transferred to Wisconsin I had been successful in football,” Wilson said. “It’s amazing how things change: ‘Oh, just play one (sport). Just play pro baseball. Or, just pursue baseball.’
“That was probably the most challenging time, to be honest with you, in my athletic career, was choosing to play football, or just baseball. For me, I had a chance to play pro baseball. Everybody told me no in terms of playing football. I was too small—even though I had great stats in college and was able to break a lot of records and do a lot of special things at N.C. State. It was one of those things that, you know, ‘just play baseball.’
“That wasn’t in my heart yet, just to play baseball. I wanted to see where God could take me. And everything I’d worked for in middle school, high school, growing up watching games and everything else, I wanted to lay it on the line in football and see how far I could take it.”
In his two seasons as N.C. State’s starter after Wilson transferred, Glennon threw for over 7,000 yards with 62 touchdowns and 29 interceptions. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers drafted him in the third round of the 2013 NFL draft, one year after Seattle drafted Wilson in the third round. The year Glennon entered the NFL was the year Wilson led the Seahawks to their first and still only Super Bowl title.
Glennon, 28, has started 22 games in six years while playing for three teams in the league. He is currently a backup with the Arizona Cardinals. He has earned $27.5 million in his career.
Wilson, 29, has earned $74.4 million in his career. He has started every game since week one of his rookie season. He became the first NFL quarterback to start two Super Bowls in his first three seasons in the league. And he has a Super Bowl ring.
O’Brien has since basically shrugged at having sent Wilson away from N.C. State in favor of Glennon.
“I’m not clairvoyant, so I can’t tell the future,” O’Brien told reporters in late 2013, when he was coaching as an assistant at Virginia. “So the thing that you do, and you always do, is you make decisions on the facts that you have at that time.
“Certainly, with the facts and the situation the way it was, we parted on great terms. Russell went his way. We had to make a decision on what’s best for N.C. State. We made that decision and went forward.”
Wilson credits his agent, Mark Rodgers, “my best friend, really,” plus his brother Harry with pushing him to continue to pursue football past O’Brien, at Wisconsin and beyond.
“He really believed in me. He really, really did. I knew I could play baseball. And he was a baseball agent,” Wilson said of Rodgers, who negotiated Wilson’s $87.6 million contract extension with the Seahawks that expires after the 2019 season. “But he really believed that I could play football. He and my brother were really the two people that guided me to make the decision to have to choose at that point Wisconsin. It was between Auburn and Wisconsin.
“And going to Wisconsin was one of the best decisions of my life, at that time.”
Wilson took advantage of a then-six-year-old NCAA rule that allowed guys who had already received an undergraduate degree to transfer and play immediately the next season at another school. Normally, transfers at the top level of college football must sit out one season before playing at a second school.
“I could have just been playing baseball...and I’m sure I would have done great and loved it,” he said. “But at the end of the day, I am here where I am now, standing up here in front of you guys (as the Seahawks’ quarterback) because I had a couple people believe in me...who encouraged to really pursue what I felt like in my heart I could do. ...
“I’m grateful that I had a few people—Mark, my brother, my mom, my sister—be there for me saying, ‘You can do this. You are going to do this.’ And, so, I did it.
“Sure enough, hard work pays off.”
This story was originally published December 20, 2018 at 4:58 PM.
