Unusual stability for a military family led Brady Russell to Seahawks ‘dream come true’
Brady Russell is one of the newest Seahawks largely because his father accomplished one of the most difficult feats in American professional work.
He maintained stability for his three sons while deployed to war with the U.S. military.
Randy Russell played big-time college football in the late 1980s. A short-term neck injury ended his football career at the University of Arkansas. He needed a new team. The son of a career Air Force man and grandson of a World War II Army veteran joined the camaraderie of the United States Marine Corps in 1990. He got commissioned as an active-duty officer two years later and became a UH-1 helicopter pilot and instructor in the Marines.
He was stationed at the Marines’ base in Camp Pendleton, California, along the coast north of San Diego. That’s where his third and youngest son, Brady, was born on Aug. 31, 1998.
Dad’s military life sent young Brady from California to Florida, Arkansas, Kansas and Fort Collins, Colorado. Five states, five different home, all before Brady was 6 years old. His father deployed into theaters of war eight times when Brady was a child.
Randy Russell received his active-duty resignation papers and confirmed retirement date of January 2002 from the Marine Corps on Sept. 10, 2001.
One day before the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“I went home, celebrated (my retirement),” Randy Russell told The News Tribune this week over the phone from his home in Parker, Colorado. “The next morning all of that changed, in terms of what that was going to look like.”
In the chaotic, miltarized weeks and months following 9/11, the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines issued “stop-loss” orders on many service members’ retirement and separation processes. The Marines gave Russell a stop-loss order to halt his retirement, but because of red tape it didn’t come until January 2002.
By then, Russell was deploying with his new Air Force Reserve unit, mobilized to war.
Russell and his family had planned to spend his days in military retirement raising the boys in Fort Collins while he piloted for Denver-based Frontier Airlines. Dad’s plan was to also keep serving in the military — part-time jobs in the Air Force Reserves then in the Air National Guard 45 minutes away, just over the border with Wyoming
In times of peace, military reserve and national-guard duty are typically on weekends, with extended training in finite periods such as weeks in the summer. Reservists and guardsmen and women routinely maintain civilian careers.
But 9/11 changed that. And so much more.
The lives of hundreds of thousands of active-duty, military, reservist and guardsmen and women were turned upside down. Mothers and fathers were involuntarily taken out of civilian jobs and their communities and put on full-time active duty, deployed a world away from their children. They were left to scramble for daily childcare for as long as 18 months at a time.
Sure, it’s what they signed up for. But their kids such as Brady didn’t. And that didn’t make it any easier to pull off.
The Air Force Reserve unit his father had been accepted into out of the Marines was mobilized immediately into war status. Within months, the retired Marine pilot left his boys in Colorado and deployed with his new Air Force reserve unit to fight in the Middle East. Randy Russell fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Oman and...
“Some of them I can say,” Russell said of all his deployments, “some of them I can’t.
“As a result of September 11th, my time after the Marine Corps was much more volatile than we expected, with deployment commitments and the operational tempo that we encountered then.”
But having already moved Brady and his older brothers five times in six years, their dad was determined to not let his military service move them any more.
That’s how Brady got to stay in Fort Collins, and star at Fossil Ridge High School.
“The one thing I felt like I could do was keep them in place and maintain continuity for their schooling and all the things they had going on in life,” Randy Russell said.
“My (now) ex-wife (Reagan, a former Division-I college track hurdler) was a mainstay in that stability for them.”
The Russell Boys’ Home
As Brady moved through his high-school years, Brady’s dad became commander of a 24-hour-day, seven-days-per-week Air Force Special Operations Command squadron based in Las Vegas. His squadron remotely controlled aircraft flying all over the world.
“That was a real challenge,” he said.
“I did have some flexibility in trying to make his games, important things. I was able to adjust my work schedule to make that happen.”
Sometimes that meant working on weekends in Las Vegas, flying there after seeing Brady play in Fort Collins on a Thursday night.
“I worked it as effectively as I could to support three boys growing up,” Russell said.
There was pride in the Marine and Air Force pilot’s voice.
The stability Randy Russell and his now-ex-wife provided in Fort Collins led to Brady’s brother Tyler attending the Naval Academy, running track there and beginning a career following Dad as another pilot in the Marine Corps. Tyler Russell is scheduled to return next week from a six-month deployment to Djibouti, in east Africa.
Brady’s other brother Cody, left Fort Collins and became a defensive end at the University of Northern Colorado a decade ago. He is an oil-field executive in Eaton, Colorado.
How close was Brady to joining his father and brother serving in the military?
“I’d probably be in there,” Brady said, “if not for football.”
That is, if not for Mom and Dad making Brady’s high school football career stable enough to be worthy of college football and, now, the NFL.
After starring at Fossil Ridge High School (Class of 2017) in Fort Collins, Russell turned down offers to play at the Football Championship Subdivision of Division-I college football. He wanted to play at the top, FBS level.
He walked on at the University of Colorado, in the Pac-12.
“I just thought I was better than what people were giving me,” he said, “so I wanted to try and prove it.”
By the preseason practice of the next year, Aug. 2018, he had earned a football scholarship and climbed to second on the Buffaloes’ depth chart at tight end.
He played in 42 games with 32 starts at Colorado. The former walk-on had 67 catches, ninth-most among tight ends in CU history. He was on the watch lists for the Mackey Award as college football’s top tight end and the Burlsworth Trophy as the most outstanding player who started as a walk-on. The Buffaloes named him team captain before last season.
His uncle Matt Russell, a former All-American linebacker at Colorado, is a senior personnel executive with the Philadelphia Eagles. When Brady Russell went undrafted this spring, the Eagles signed him as a rookie free agent. He impressed them enough to be on their practice squad to begin the season.
He also impressed the Seahawks’ pro scouts with his work, particularly on special teams during Philadelphia’s preseason games.
Seattle calls — at a unique time
Russell had just finally moved in fully to his place near the Eagles’ training facility in south Philadelphia when the Seahawks called on Tuesday, Sept. 19.
Seattle tight end Will Dissly had injured his shoulder and wasn’t going to be able to play in last week’s game. Dissly’s status is iffy for Monday night, when the Seahawks (2-1) play at the New York Giants (1-2).
Dissly is the Seahawks’ best blocking tight end; Noah Fant and Colby Parkinson are receivers first. And no NFL team has used multiple tight ends in formations more than Seattle the last two seasons.
Russell fit that need.
“I probably take — I don’t know if I should say ‘more pride’ in the blocking — but that’s the part no one wants to do and I like it. I take pride in it,” Russell said. “That will keep you around, you know.”
NFL rules state teams can sign players off other club’s practice squads onto their 53-man active roster at any point in the season. The acquiring team must keep that signed player for at least three weeks.
So the Seahawks called Russell, last Tuesday. They signed him to the active roster the next day. They had been impressed by him during Eagles preseason games.
“I had just gotten all my furnishings, literally the night before,” he said. “It was my first night having my TV working and watching Monday night football.”
His agent called him at 5 p.m. on that Tuesday, while he was at the Eagles’ facility. In a short, 30-second call the agent told Russell the Seahawks were signing him to the active roster.
“I started tearing up a little bit,” he said.
His head was spinning from the news out of nowhere that he was moving to Seattle for a new part of his football life. He went into the bathroom in his Eagles locker room.
That’s when Pete Carroll called.
“Hey, Brady, this is Pete. Are you ready to come be part of the Seahawks?” Seattle’s coach asked him over the phone.
“Yeah, absolutely!” Russell responded.
While he was using the bathroom urinal.
“I was like, ‘Oh, shoot! What’s going on here?” he said the next day, preparing for his first Seahawks practice across the country.
“Pretty funny. You don’t expect that every day.”
Immediate Seahawks debut
As of Wednesday he still didn’t know when his truck and his belongings beyond the luggage he checked onto his flight from Philadelphia to Seattle would catch up to him in Washington. He does have the gray Colorado football equipment bag that is in his new Seahawks locker at the team’s facility in Renton.
Yet he learned Seattle’s offense and special-teams schemes quickly enough to play in his first NFL game four days after he arrived in Seattle. He got five plays at tight end and 21 snaps on special teams in the Seahawks’ win over Carolina last weekend.
“Oh, it’s unbelievable,” Russell said. “Dream come true.”
After just three practices with his new team he was in for 60% of all Seahawks kicking-game plays against the Panthers.
“Oh yeah, it’s a lot to do in a short order like that. He’s done really well,” Carroll said. “Seems like a really bright kid, and handled everything.
“He helped out a little bit at the line of scrimmage and he had a good first game for us at tackle and special teams,” Carroll said. “We really picked him up as a special teams guy, that we thought could be unique and he jumped right in.
“One week he’s with us and he’s playing, so I think he did really well.”
Including on his first Seahawks play.
The first punt he covered against Carolina, at the end of Seattle’s first possession, Russell lined up at left guard next to snapper Chris Stoll. He sprinted down the field along the left hash marks. He eluded blockers then cut right and dumped Panthers returner Ihmir Smith-Marsette for a 3-yard loss.
Randy Russell was there for it all.
Of course he was.
Just like he made sure he was for Brady’s games at Fossil Ridge High nights before he had to command an Air Force squadron in Nevada, Dad was inside Lumen Field last Sunday. He was yelling in the rain for the Seahawks’ new number 38 with long, blonde hair flowing out the back of his helmet.
“My wife (Carolyn) and I -- I remarried, not Brady’s mother -- she and I went out there Saturday,” Randy Russell said. “We got to see him Saturday night, then we were at the game on Sunday.
“It was a wonderful experience. And I’ll tell you what, the people of Seattle were fantastic. We interacted with so many people trying to figure things out, and last week came so quickly, but people were tremendous. We really had a wonderful time.
“It was quite a week. Obviously, we hoped for some scenario like this. But it caught us all off guard how quickly it changed. And it wasn’t with Philadelphia. ...A little surprised at the poaching that took place.
“And we are excited about it. Excited to be Seahawks.”
This story was originally published September 29, 2023 at 5:42 AM.
