Pete Carroll’s focus upon Seahawks’ return from bye? It’s not all football. It’s voting
The NFC’s only 5-0 team is doing far more important things than trying to win more football games.
Coach Pete Carroll had a prime objective for his players upon the Seahawks’ return from their bye week Monday.
It wasn’t to ask about all the great trips his players took. They didn’t take any. All stayed around team headquarters for more daily COVID-19 testing, part of an unprecedented bye week in this unprecedented season.
It wasn’t to talk about being unbeaten after five games for the first time in franchise history entering Sunday’s game at NFC West-rival Arizona.
Carroll asked for a show of hands for who had already voted.
“It is 15 days until the election here. Everybody has a chance to get out there and vote,” Seattle’s coach said.
He stood up taller in the online camera during his remote, post-practice press conference to show off his “#COACHTHEVOTE” T-shirt.
“We took a showing of hands today,” Carroll said. “We’re workin’ it. We are workin’ it here. We are not quite complete.”
Carroll said he had a swagger coming off the bye week.
It wasn’t that he spent it in one of his homes in Hawaii, either.
“I was able to get my vote out, done, (Sunday) night,” the coach said. “So I’m feeling pretty cocky about it, to tell you the truth.
“I made it through the whole process.”
Since summer, Carroll and team leaders Russell Wilson and Bobby Wagner wanted to ensure all Seahawks were first registered to vote, so they could then tangibly affect the change they’ve been demanding in the wake of the killing of Black Americans such as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.
“This is the first year I’m actually registered to vote myself,” 27-year-old safety Quandre Diggs said in August. “I will have to do an absentee ballot.”
Seahawks players and coaches aren’t all like Washington’s voters. Not all make the Seattle area their year-round home. They don’t get ballots bar-coded and by registered name by Washington state and county election officials, then mailed to their in-season homes for convenient submission at a nearby voting drop-off or mail box.
Many of the players remain residents of their home states to which they return in the offseasons, each February to July.
“The process is challenging, if you haven’t done it yet,” Carroll said.
Many Seahawks, particularly their younger players in their 20s and recently out of college, had not voted before now. They weren’t registered to in their home states. That’s why the Seahawks have attacked the issue of voting during this season with their players in two phases.
It’s a process that began in early August.
The team took the unusual step amid their intense talks about racial and social injustice to cancel a practice during training camp and hold a voter-registration drive—right there on the side of the practice field at team headquarters in Renton instead.
Players either registered to vote that day, using materials the team researched and collected, or they learned the documentation their states require to become a registered voter for the first time.
“Everybody has already made the preparations to take care of that,” Carroll said Monday. “I can’t tell you that everybody has received everything that they needed at this point. But I know that well back, when we started in the process, everybody went to work on it, to figure out what they had to do to get organized to vote in their local areas.”
After leading his players in registering or taking the steps, Carroll was checking on the second phase Monday during the team meeting: actually ensuring each players’ vote count.
“Like always, there will be a little bit of a scramble (before Election Day),” the coach said.
“But we were on it today. We were tying to make sure our guys are staying ahead of it.
“Let’s all do it. Send out the word. You guys are all messengers for our future here, you know—if you want to be.”
