Russell Wilson’s Seattle Children’s visits have become vital to many lives – including his
When Russell Wilson first walked into Seattle Children’s hospital, 23 years old in a new city starting a new career, he needed a reason to be there.
He also needed a name tag.
“The lady said, ‘Who are you, again?’” Wilson recalled Thursday, laughing.
“And so after the first day I went—I saw five or six kids—and I told her when I was leaving, ‘Can I start to come back, you know, every time?’”
The hospital woman’s response: “I don’t even know who you are.”
“Shortly after, after a couple weeks, I think she started to freak me out a little bit,” Wilson said, laughing again.
Oh, they absolutely know who Russell Wilson is now, throughout every department and corner of Seattle Children’s. And beyond.
The Seahawks’ Super Bowl-winning quarterback and face of the franchise has kept his word. He’s been coming back to Seattle Children’s since that first trip there unannounced and unknown in May 2012. Back then, Wilson was Seattle’s rookie quarterback expected to back up Matt Flynn (remember him?) that season.
So, yeah, he needed a “Hello, my name is...” sticker.
No more. Pretty much every Tuesday, in season and out, for the last 7 1/2 years, Wilson has gone back to one of the country’s most influential and impacting pediatric medical centers, to change lives. Many times he brings his wife, singer, songwriter and model Ciara.
Every time, he brings smiles and joy to kids and their families that need them more than any of us know.
The same guy who used to almost talk his way in seven years ago now has patients, families and staff eagerly anticipating his visits. It’s the undeniable highlight of their week. Every week.
The rest of the Pacific Northwest has its “Blue Fridays,” for Seahawks Sunday games. Seattle Children’s has “Blue Tuesdays.”
Yes, Wilson’s visits are bigger than that week’s football game.
“It’s been one of the greatest gifts God’s given me, it’s just to be able to have influence, I think, to be able to have influence and a little bit of change, too,” Wilson said. “I think the combination of the two has been a blessing in my life, and I know a blessing in Ciara’s life. ...
“It’s been probably one of the greatest things that’s ever happened to me.”
This is a man who’s won a Super Bowl, who signed an NFL-record $140 million contract this spring, and is off to the best start of his career this fall.
Wilson leads the league with 17 touchdown passes and a 115.5 passer rating. He has 20 total touchdowns and just one interception through eight games for the 6-2 Seahawks entering Sunday’s home game against Tampa Bay (2-5).
Yet none of what Wilson does on Sundays is ultimately as meaningful as what he does in northeast Seattle on Tuesdays.
This week, young Jackson was at Seattle Children’s awaiting an organ transplant. For him, Tuesday wasn’t transplant day. It was “Blue Tuesday,” of course. Wilson was coming.
Outside Jackson’s hospital room, he had stenciled for him in pastel blue, orange, green and pink: “RUSSELL WILSON STOP HERE! (please :))“
Wilson did.
See, Wilson doesn’t take a few steps inside the hospital’s front doors to the play room or conference center or cafeteria for easy photo ops in the common areas of Seattle Children’s.
He goes upstairs onto the high-risk floors. Into the burn units and cancer wings. He goes into the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). He sees the tiniest, premature babies trying to fight off jaundice and infection. Those gritty infants, days and weeks old, are growing under minutes-by-minute care next to unbelievably stressed-out parents who stay up nights and days hearing monitors beeping and watching their newborns through the clear plastic bubble of an isolette.
Wilson puts on infection-resistant masks and clothing at Seattle Children’s to see the sickest of the sick. Kids who come from as far away as Alaska, Hawaii, even China to get the hospital’s world-class research, care and most of all hope.
Wilson provides that.
Last year at this time he stopped to see Hunter in the cancer ward to sit on his bed.
Wilson and Hunter shared a video. It’s better than any Seahawks game film.
He saw Frida, down the hall from Hunter. He signed a pink football for her. Her reaction? Maybe better than Wilson’s when he won the Super Bowl five years ago.
Impact? Let’s just say Wilson making the right reads of Tampa Bay’s man coverage on third down Sunday at CenturyLink Field just doesn’t have quite the same importance.
“I’ve probably seen several thousand kids now,” Wilson said Thursday. “When I first started going it was, ‘OK, how can I impact other people?’ And I started realizing, man, it was probably the biggest lift throughout my weeks.
“Obviously, I think makes a big impact for them.
“But I don’t think those kids understand what they do for me. Just for my soul. Just for what God has called me to be, and for giving back. Loving other people.”
“Every room you go into you never know what you are going to get. Every time you go into a room, the family may have tons of faith. May have no faith at all. They may have tons of family there. They may have no parents, no moms to be there, no dads to be there; they may just be on their own.
“I think that, more than anything, it’s about giving love. It’s about giving a moment to give a little glimpse of hope, a little glimpse of, just, belief.”
Wilson says he’s noticed a trend among the thousands of rooms and kids he’s seen at Seattle Children’s since 2012.
“Every room that I go into, the kids that usually make it, that overcome—and sometimes it doesn’t always happen this way—a lot of times the rooms that overcome, or beat cancer, or whatever it may be, they are the families that have people that care about them. Or the boyfriend, the girlfriend, or the cousin, or the grandmother who stays there all night.
“I think about not just the kids but the families, the loved ones, who stay there 24/7. People flying from Alaska. People flying from Idaho. People flying from Hawaii. People flying from other countries to come to Seattle Children’s because it’s one of the best hospitals in the world.
“It’s made a major impact over my life, Ciara’s life, what we do with our foundation—the Why Not You Foundation. It’s been one of the major focal points for us, is to give back, to care, to give a little bit of love to others. That’s been special.”
Wilson said one of the children he saw at the hospital this week had relatives in Richmond, Virginia. That’s where Wilson grew up and attended high school.
“I go in the room, and the dad was like, ‘Man, I went to Collegiate!’—the same school I went to,” Wilson said. “I said, ‘You did?!’
“You run into people’s worlds...and you don’t know how you are going to impact their world, or give them a glimpse of hope or a smile, even. Through all the tears. Through all the pain. Through all the heartache. Through all the loss. Also through all the good, too. You don’t know how you can make an impact.”
“I just remember—I kind of write out my goals, as you guys know, I’ve written out my goals before—and one of the things (was) to, just make an impact. Legacy goals. What are those things you are going to do outside of football? How are you going to impact people?
“My dad always used to say, ‘The significance is not when you are born. It’s not when you die. It’s the hash mark in between.’
“I’ve been blessed with a lot of opportunities. I’ve been blessed to be able to give back.”
Wilson said he first got the idea to visit Seattle Children’s weekly because of his parents. His mother, Tammy, was an emergency-room nurse. His father, Harrison Wilson III, was a one-time San Diego Chargers wide receiver who graduated from Dartmouth. He became a lawyer, married Russell’s mother and had two sons and a daughter with her.
He died in 2010 from complications with diabetes. He was 55.
Wilson was attending and playing his final season for North Carolina State at the time of his dad’s death. The Colorado Rockies had just selected the middle infielder in the Major League Baseball draft. Two years later, the Seahawks drafted Wilson in the third round from Wisconsin, where he had transferred and led the Badgers to the Rose Bowl.
When Wilson goes to Seattle Children’s every Tuesday, he does so while remembering those final days with his father in the hospital. Those were warm yet lonely days, when faith and each other was often all he and his dad shared.
“My mom had been an ER nurse. My dad, unfortunately, was always in the hospital,” Wilson said. “So, unfortunately, I had gotten used to hospitals, being around them. It’s one of the toughest places to be, because it’s the people you care about most. And I think that one of the things I want to be able to do in Seattle—and I did it some at Wisconsin, a little bit at N.C. State—just to make an impact for the kids. Just going there and visiting them.”
More than seven years after that first visit, no one at Seatle Children’s asks Wilson who he is and why he’s there anymore.
“You know, everyone once in a while I may run into someone who’s like, ‘Yeah..you know...uh...,’ Wilson said, laughing.
“The cool part about Seattle Children’s is, they are ready. They are ready to roll. I wish I could see every room, to be honest with you. The problem is, I’ve got (team and position) meetings and film to watch.
“But I always try to give a little love to each kid as I go by, if I can’t go to their room that day. Hopefully, I can see them next week, or whatever.
“Hopefully, they are not there anymore. Hopefully they are on their way, living the rest of their life.”
This story was originally published October 31, 2019 at 3:32 PM.
