Wrapping up the Get to Know Field Gulls series, today readers have the opportunity to learn a little bit more about the best looking of the site’s contributors, John P. Gilbert.
How did you become a football fan?
Growing up in a small town in southwest Kansas, football was basically a way of life. For the annual high school rivalry game attendance would push 8,000 in a town with a population under 25,000, and on Saturdays the JUCO games offered the chance to see players like Brent Venables or Corey Dillon.
How did you become a Seattle Seahawks fan?
Living in the heart of Broncos and Chiefs country, the neighbors around the corner were the parents of then Seahawks guard Bryan Millard.
Who is your all time favorite Seahawks player? (and why)
Bryan Millard, for the already mentioned reason.
How long have you been with Field Gulls? How did you get started?
I stumbled across the site while stuck in my basement apartment in Queens after Hurricane Sandy while NYC was still largely shut down in November 2012, and lurked for a couple of years. I registered as a user in the spring of 2015, wrote a couple of fan posts that led to a regular contributor role following Danny’s call for writers in the spring of 2016. I’ve been with the site on and off since then.
What do you do outside of your work at Field Gulls?
A little bit of everything. I spent time in the financial industry in NYC and that led to a lot of promotions and fancy titles. However, it also led to becoming a whistleblower, which led to higher levels of stress than I could handle, a stack of associated subpoenas and a PTSD diagnosis, so I stepped away from the professional world in 2015. Since then I’ve done mostly random stuff, temp work and entry level roles with the plan of eventually returning to the rat race once my son started school. The pandemic has pushed those plans back for the time being, which is perfectly fine.
Last year I started part time with an Amazon delivery station and it was probably my favorite job of all time. It also brought the opportunity to transfer into a role at the warehouse on Staten Island during peak which paired well with the fact that I needed/wanted to be in NYC on completely unrelated matters at the same time, and that was probably my second favorite job of all time. Between the pandemic, my knee injury, the health insurance and the ability to work nights so I can spend the days with my son, I’m still plugging away.
Managers keep pushing me to apply for promotions, so I keep transferring and dipping out to avoid additional responsibilities. So, in short I’m a stay at home dad who does inbound insurance sales during the day and back half nights I might be the only person packing boxes for Amazon who has two masters and a law degree.
Are you in the Seattle area or elsewhere?
I suppose from a galactic perspective Florida might be considered in the Seattle area. (Though those who follow me on Twitter know that in addition to Florida, over the past year I’ve also spent significant amounts of time in NYC, Kansas and North Carolina)
You get an all expense paid dinner for your family and friends. Where are we going and what are we eating?
It’s going to be a hole in the wall somewhere with great food. Tacos El Rey on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn, Rosedale’s on Southwest Boulevard in Kansas City, Okrasa in Ridgewood (Queens).
What are you known for among your friends? Your claim to fame if you will?
I have a tendency to do things to excess. Used to drink so much it became better to stop. Took up running and wound up running marathons. Started commenting on a football blog and posted so much I woke up one day as Deputy Editor.
I-formation with a fullback or shotgun with five wide? Why?
I’ve been running shotgun with five wide on Madden since the late 90s when that required using a custom playbook because the Holmgren’s playbook in the game had everything run from under center.
How’s 2020 treated you so far?
As noted above, I became a financial industry whistleblower in 2011 in a small regulatory matter. That led to involvement as a witness in a much larger, multi-million dollar ponzi scheme starting in 2014, and that didn’t wrap up until earlier this year. The stress of being involved with that was crushing at times, so having that weight lifted off my shoulders late in 2019 and early 2020 set things up for a great year.
It has been far from perfect, but overall it hasn’t been bad. The pandemic slowed the timetable for getting surgery on a knee injury and contributed to a very brief false alarm cancer scare, but that’s been about the worst of it. Work’s been good, the family’s in good health and I think for the first time since 2013 I haven’t had to speak to any feds about a former employer, so I’m going to go ahead and put this one in the not too bad column.
How will the Seahawks fare over the remainder of the season after they return from the bye week?
The schedule is pretty friendly so taking the division and the top seed in the NFC are certainly possible.
What should readers know about you outside of the questions you’ve already answered?
Yes, I am as good looking as I am intelligent, thank you for asking.