This is something I have been pondering for quite some time. To write a piece on how I became a fan of the Seattle Seahawks and my first encounters with American football and the National Football League. I have been lurking around FieldGulls for three years now and I guess it’s time to contribute a little bit (took me awhile to become a member).

To get some things out of the way: my name is Jakob and I’m 23 years old and have been a Seahawks fan for 9 years. I’m born in Denmark and all members of my family are Danish so there has never been a "natural" reason for me to be interested in football.

I still remember the day I started cheering for the Seattle Seahawks. It was a Tuesday morning around 10 am in the city of Aalborg, Denmark 2003. I was ill and was staying home from school. Flickering through the channels while I was lying in bed I stumbled on a rerun of an American Football game from last Sunday – a game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Cleveland Browns (a game the Seahawks ended up winning 34 to 7). I had some rudimentary understanding of the rules thanks to Madden 2003 which I had borrowed on the library a couple of months earlier, and the few times I had been watching parts of other games earlier in the season, but it was still very much a new game to me. And for the first time a game had my interest from the opening kickoff to the final whistle of the fourth quarter. This I owe to especially four players: Matt Hasselbeck, Shaun Alexander, Koren Robinson and Darrell Jackson who all had an excellent game that night (or to me that Tuesday morning).

Being hooked to the game and the Seattle Seahawks I had to find a way to keep track of the team. Television was not a real option since Danish television only had one or two games each Sunday and since it was and still is the NFL who decides which games should be send across the pond, east coast bias applies to the Danish media as well. My solution therefore became Game Tracker on nfl.com, so imagine me sitting in front of my computer from 22 p.m. to 1.30 a.m. (+9 hours from Pacific Time to Central European Time) trying to follow the important games that secured a play-off berth.

My next televised Seahawks game was the "We want the ball and we’re gonna Score" wild card game against the Packers. This game made me mad and sad for the next couple of days. But nothing compared to what I felt 2 years later after SBXL (sorry to bring that up).

My interest and fanhood grew over the coming years, first came finding live radio broadcasts doing games, then TV streams and finally NFL GamePass which I have had a subscription since it was introduced. But the most important thing has always been that I had to watch "my" Seattle Seahawks every Sunday! The interest also evolved from being just about the games to trying to understand the concept of formations, plays, strategies. I started paying attention to free agency, the draft, pre-season and the roster battles, and finally to stuff like the CBA.

But this year is going to be different; I haven't renewed my GamePass because I’m moving to Seattle to study for six months at the University of Washington. Being able to finally, after 9 years, to go to a game at Century Link field watching the Seattle Seahawks and screaming out my lungs is going to be friggin’ awesome! Go Hawks!!!