Bobby Wagner values ‘the brilliance of women,’ including Seahawks chair Jody Allen
The two most influential, impactful people in Bobby Wagner’s life?
Both women.
“My mom was (my) biggest direction,” the Seahawks All-Pro, captain and 10-year franchise cornerstone said.
A dozen years ago, following Wagner’s freshman year at Utah State, his mother and biggest fan died.
Phenia Wagner had a heart attack, months after she had had a stroke. She was 47.
She’s been in the front of Wagner’s mind through him becoming a Super Bowl champion and best middle linebacker of this era. She remains there every day, every game. The next one was to be Monday night, when he and his Seahawks (3-7) were trying to save their season against Washington (4-6) in suburban D.C.
“I wanted to use this opportunity to highlight the brilliance of women in sports, media, business and medicine,” Wagner said in his weekly press conference the day before Thanksgiving. “Obviously, I have two older sisters and so they played a huge role in how I grew up and understanding what they go through on a day-to-day basis and how you treat women.
“My mom was always on me about how I treat the women in my life. And it wasn’t just girls, but your aunts and your sisters, and the respect that you need to have.”
Wagner is an entrepreneur who immerses himself in business off the field. While doing so, he’s met more influential women.
“I would say that there are a bunch of people whether it is in business ... I was fortunate to meet Maya Moore, who is with the brand Jordan,” Wagner said, “so hearing her story was dope.”
Moore is the basketball legend from the University of Connecticut and the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx. She has skipped multiple pro seasons and the 2020 Olympics while she’s accelerated her advocacy for criminal-justice reform.
“The first thing I heard was when she stepped away from basketball to focus on this, that was the first time I had heard about it,” Wagner said.
“I was like, ‘What is she focusing on to take away from something that she has been playing for her whole life?’”
Wagner’s second influential woman in his life is the one who approved his $54 million contract extension with the Seahawks in 2019, then the richest deal for an inside linebacker in NFL history.
Jody Allen has been the Seahawks chair since the death of her brother Paul Allen, the team’s owner, in 2018.
Jody Allen with the Seahawks
Late in the spring of 2019, Wagner was at an offseason workout at the team’s training facility in Renton. He saw Jody Allen on the field. He went up to her and introduced himself to the new team owner.
Allen knew Wagner was representing himself, without an agent, in contract talks with the Seahawks. She seized the chance that day to talk to Wagner face to face, on the field, instead of through John Schneider. The Seahawks’ general manager had been their intermediary during the early stages of talks on Wagner’s contract to begin 2019.
“I haven’t been able to have too many interactions with her, but from what I have heard and been around, she’s really locked in, really into business and really knows her numbers,” Wagner said of the chair for Vulcan, Inc., her brother’s Seattle-based company that oversees his business activities, philanthropic efforts and estimated $20 billion estate.
Wagner said Jody Allen steered the All-Pro linebacker’s record contract to completion in July 2019.
“Sometimes, people think that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Wagner said, “but she stepped right in and knew exactly what was going on, understood everything (that was) going on, and she picked up where the business left off.
“From what I have seen, she has done an amazing job. Obviously, I don’t know the day-in and day-out, but she has a lot of respect on this end. ...
“She definitely knows what she’s doing.”
Allen’s involvement with the team and its star players, including star quarterback Russell Wilson, is more than a mere curiosity these days. The Seahawks appear on their way to only their second non-playoff season in the last 10 years. Changes are coming for 2022; they always do each offseason. But there will be moves coming up that Allen, at the top of the franchise, will need to decide.
Wilson signed his $140 million extension with the Seahawks, at the time the richest contract in league history, with Allen’s approval three months before Wagner signed his deal in 2019. Wilson’s contract ends after the 2023 season. He stated his frustration publicly last February after a sixth consecutive year of Seattle not advancing past the second round of the NFC playoffs.
The last seven games of this regular season will determine how frustrated Wilson might be this coming winter into spring. His relationship with Allen could become a factor in his longer-term future.
It was in Pete Carroll’s. Allen gave the 70-year-old coach a contract extension last year to remain the franchise’s top football authority through 2025. Only Allen outranks Carroll running the Seahawks.
This month, Carroll said he and Schneider had recently had a “normal,” midseason meeting with Allen to discuss the team.
Wilson’s meetings with Allen are more informal.
“I know Jody pretty well. We’ve gotten to talk a few times,” Wilson said. “Obviously, she’s super busy and I’m pretty busy. We don’t talk every day or anything like that, but she’s great.
“She obviously supports our football team and wanting to win, trying to find everything we can do. She’s super enthusiastic about the Seattle Seahawks. I love it.”
Wagner the dad
Wagner is sharing the parenting and lessons he got from his mother and sisters while as a dad to his daughter Quinncy. He celebrated on the field with her moments after the Seahawks finished dominating the Denver Broncos to win Super Bowl 48 in the New Jersey Meadowlands at the end of Seattle’s 2013 season.
“I think it’s important to take the time to acknowledge the contributions of women in this world, and understand the role of men that we play in this world,” Wagner said.
“There’s so many different things (women) have done in the last few years ... it’s been very inspirational. I think a lot of the times it doesn’t get talked about in every field. It doesn’t matter what field it is, so I wanted to take the time to express my appreciation, my gratefulness — and speak to all of the men out there about the path women take to get to the same goal we get, it’s different. You have to have some empathy and be mindful about how you support not only the women in your life, but the women in the world with the things that they want to get done in their life.
“I think it’s important to look for ways to help with that. There are a lot of things that they do in this world that we don’t talk about enough. There are a lot of ways that we can help, whether it’s investing in a woman founder, whether it’s understanding the obstacles they go through, whether it’s in medicine or media.”
Wagner has a challenge for men: understand what women bull through to succeed in society.
“I wanted to say, A), I’m grateful, and B), I challenge men to have an open mind and perspective and do your part in whatever it looks like to help move that needle forward,” Wagner said. “I do feel like the role that women play now and in the future is extremely powerful and important, so I’m open to conversation.
“I understand that I’m still learning a lot of things that I don’t understand, but I want to understand. I challenge men to challenge themselves in that world.”
This story was originally published November 29, 2021 at 9:20 AM.
