Anyone who has followed West Virginia University football in recent years knows the meaning of the phrase “leave no doubt” to the program. The late Bill Stewart used those words to get his team ready for a Fiesta Bowl upset over Oklahoma, a game played weeks after Rich Rodriguez had defected to Michigan.
Seahawks players have adopted the slogan for 2013, with a key addition at the end: 24/7.
The numbers are the “major part of this thing,” tackle Russell Okung said, via the team’s official website.
“Anybody can do something wrong,” Okung said. “But do you have enough discipline, do you hold yourself accountable enough to say, ‘I can do the right thing when it’s not so easy, or when it’s not the popular thing to do?’ . . . It’s really called being selfless and having that type of humility. Those are the type of guys that are here.”
Ideally, they are. But the rash of suspensions in recent years show that lapses have occurred. The Seahawks want none of them going forward.
“It’s an everyday, all-the-time thing,” Okung said. “We’re Seahawks, on the field, off the field, with our families, when we’re away in the offseason. We’re Seahawks and we’re going to hold ourselves up to the reputation.”
Coach Pete Carroll approves of the effort, obviously.
“It’s a great message for us and the guys came to it because they wanted to make a statement and they wanted to get better,” Carroll said after Tuesday’s practice. “They wanted to improve. I think the messaging is really clear.”
“We put it up there on our own,” Okung said. “We were in a team meeting and we wanted to come up with something that really meant something, not just to one person but to everybody.”
Whatever the words and however the origin, the act of coming together and coming up with the slogan could have a greater impact on the team than the slogan itself.