What Seahawks dreamed of is coming true: Super Bowl parade is ‘gonna be so lit’
There is a photograph hanging on a wall inside Seahawks headquarters of the last time the team had a parade through Seattle.
It was a dozen years ago. Pete Carroll’s team won Super Bowl 48 at the end of the 2013 season. Marshawn Lynch was the show of the parade. The iconic running back was sitting on the hood of and hanging off the open-air, Ride-The-Ducks trucks throwing fist fulls of Skittles to fans who stood in bitter cold. And, to borrow the words of the Seahawks’ current coach: They. Did. Not. Care.
People across the Pacific Northwest and Seahawks fans around the world still talk about that civic party 12 years ago.
So does a current Seahawk who was 14 years old going to high school in Fort Worth, Texas, that last parade day.
“I always look at that (picture). It looks so crazy,” Woolen said Tuesday, a locker clean-out day like no other at the Seahawks’ Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton.
“It’s something I’ve dreamed about,” Woolen said.
His dream becomes real life Wednesday.
Woolen and coach Mike Macdonald’s Seahawks are having the second Super Bowl victory parade in Seattle’s history. The event to celebrate the team beating the New England Patriots in Super Bowl 60 last weekend begins Wednesday morning with an event to show off the trophy at Lumen Field starting at 10 a.m. About 50,000 tickets for that reportedly sold out in a hour on Monday.
Then at 11 a.m., a free, come-on-come-all parade down 4th Avenue, from the stadium north through downtown to the Space Needle in Seattle Center. Organizers and police are expecting up to 1 million people to attend.
“To be able to be in one now? Oh, I know it’s going to be so lit,” Woolen said. “I know it’s supposed to be a million people, or something like that? I’m just here to see it, man. It’s so crazy.
“Seattle is a lovely city. The fans here, they deserve it. The people here, they deserve it. The whole state of Washington, they deserve it, as well.
“Y’all comin’? Pull up. It’s gonna be fun.”
Leonard Williams excited for the parade, too
Leonard Williams has been in the NFL for 11 years. He spent the first half of his career with the Jets and Giants in New York wondering if he would ever play in a postseason game. He was wondering if he should retire, before age 30.
Until a few weeks ago, Williams had never won a playoff game. Now, at age 31, he’s going to be celebrated by a million people in a parade for winning the Super Bowl.
His thoughts went to this parade soon after he and the Seahawks finished dominating Drake Maye with six sacks. Seattle’s defense forced three turnovers in the second half of Seattle’s 29-13 rout of New England Sunday night in Santa Clara, California. “I’m really looking forward to that. The parade is going to be beautiful,” Williams said. “You know, even when we landed (at SeaTac Airport Monday) and we were driving to the facility as a team, you hear all the cars honkin’ when they see us driving by. Just all the Hawks fans standing outside the facility.
“I’m sure that’s only 1% of what we’re going to see (Wednesday).
“To do it for the city, it’s just amazing.”
Veteran Pro Bowl safety Julian Love, who turns 28 next month, also played in New York, including with Williams on those losing Giants teams.
Love grew up in the Chicago suburbs. He’s never attended a sports-championship parade. The National Hockey League’s Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup when Love was growing up there, but he didn’t go to that parade.
Now he’s riding in one as a Super Bowl champion.
“I’ve dreamed about a Super Bowl parade. It’s crazy,” Love said. “It goes hand in hand with the confetti falling, and the trophy. Especially in Seattle, these fans, they were with us, they’ve been with us through this entire ride. Ups and downs. The support here has been crazy.
“Especially for me, personally, I’ve never been more recognized on the street, with my family, than this year. ...They show up it’s always positive. It’s always love.
“(Wednesday’s) going to be crazy, I’m sure.
“I’m excited for this one.”
Ball boy
Maybe Uchenna Nwosu will bring his new, souvenir football to show off at the parade.
The Seahawks linebacker clinched the Super Bowl victory by intercepting a soft toss from Maye that Seattle’s Devon Witherspoon forced with his hit of the Patriots’ quarterback on a cornerback blitz in the fourth quarter Sunday. The ball floated directly to Nwosu, who had been pass rushing to Witherspoon’s left. Nwosu had nothing but grass and the goal line in front of him on his 45-yard return for a touchdown.
The first touchdown of Nwosu’s eight-year career of 107 regular-season games plust six more in the playoffs put the Seahawks ahead 29-7 with 4 1/2 minutes left. Super Bowl 60 was theirs.
Then Nwosu lost track of the football he scored with during the long, raucous celebration the Seahawks had in their locker room for hours after the Super Bowl.
Tuesday, Nwosu found the ball in his locker back in Renton. An equipment person ensued its safekeeping on the team’s trips from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara to the plane that flew the Seahawks home Monday and back to the facility.
Nwosu was clutching the ball like a running back in the locker room Tuesday.
“They’ve been sleeping on me in the defensive-line room. We have a little competition on who has the best hands,” the pass rusher said.
“Officially, it’s me.”
Williams walked past him.
“Sleep with it! Go to sleep with it!” Williams told his teammate.
“Yeah,” Nwosu said, looking down at his prized football, “this is never leaving my side.”
Nwosu, 29, grew up in Los Angeles. He’s watched so many Super Bowl victory parades every other city threw for every other team.
Now, his new city is throwing a parade — what promises to be a giant civic party —for him.
“You see so many videos of it all the time, of guys having fun, all these cool quotes that come out of it with the parades,” Nwosu said.
“I’m excited to experience that for the first time.”
This story was originally published February 10, 2026 at 1:57 PM.
