Redskins Fans in Seattle Get Some Company Today: The Hometown Team
By Nick Miroff
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 5, 2008
SEATTLE, Jan. 4 -- Loving the Redskins from 2,800 miles away is like any long-distance relationship for fans here in the other Washington: often lonely, occasionally thrilling and rarely content. When the team loses, there is no one to commiserate with. Wins, too, are usually celebrated solo. Friends urge you to move on and start over with someone else.
A weaker heart would be tempted. "I love my 'Skins," said J.D. Shoemaker, a Seattle resident who grew up in St. Mary's County. "There's nothing they could do to change that."
And lest there be any doubt that he means it: This season, Shoemaker had the team's logo tattooed on each of his arms. He's now saving up to get a tattoo of a black band with No. 21 and the initials "S.T." as an indelible tribute to Sean Taylor, the defensive star who was killed Nov. 27.
Shoemaker also has Redskins clocks, Redskins pencils, a Redskins leash for his dog -- even a Redskins fly swatter. The living room in his apartment is so decked out he doesn't call it that; he calls it the "Redskins room."
"I've been a diehard fan since I was a little kid," explained Shoemaker, 32, who moved to Seattle when he was 19. "It gives me a connection to home."
Shoemaker will be in the stands for today's first-round NFL playoff game at Qwest Field, a burgundy-and-gold interloper in a blue sea of Seahawks jerseys, and as much a visitor as his out-of-town team. For he and other D.C. area transplants who have relocated here, the Redskins are often more than just a football team. They're a tie to childhood and faraway family and, in an era of rootlessness and career mobility, an anchor. Although the team might not love you back -- as Drew Barrymore pointed out to Red Sox-crazed Jimmy Fallon in "Fever Pitch"--for many fans here, it is enough to simply love.
"The Redskins and my family go back 50 years," said Jeff Parks, 33, a technical writer living in Olympia, 60 miles south of Seattle. Parks's grandfather moved to the D.C. area to work for the Department of the Navy during World War II, and his father grew up in Chantilly. "They brought me up right as a Redskins fans. It's steeped in my blood."
Parks was 8 when his parents divorced and he moved with his father and grandparents from Centreville to Florida. "I remember on Sunday afternoons my grandfather would sit there with his headphones on, creeping through the AM dial ever so slowly, trying to find the Redskins anywhere. He would find them on some armed forces radio network out of New Orleans and listen through three layers of static."
Said Parks, "I can't think of the team without thinking of him."
At least modern long-distance Redskins worship is no longer such an ascetic affair. With satellite TV, real-time online game trackers and 24-hour sports chatter, the only thing usually lacking is company. Some Seattle-area Redskins fans have recently addressed this by creating a fan group through meetup.com, rallying the faithful at a local sports bar every Sunday in full regalia.
"Because I'm in a new city and away from my friends and family, it's a familiarity for me," said Kimberley Mertz, whose husband, Joe Mertz, started the group. She grew up in McLean, moved to Seattle in 2006 and now works for Amazon.com.
"It would be great to be in D.C. right now to feel the energy I'm sure everybody is feeling there," she said, sounding wistful.
For those unable to commune with Redskins comrades in the office or at the local pub, the blog world fills in. Under the pseudonym "PDiddy," Prashant Sridharan, who grew up in Silver Spring and came here 12 years ago to work for Microsoft, posts 10 to 20 comments a day on the Redskins Insider blog.
"As a Redskins fan living 3,000 miles from home, you don't get that day-to-day [exposure] you get in D.C.," he said, "so the blog is a great way for me to share the passion I have."
Sridharan, like other Redskins fans here, is not overly impressed with the football culture of the Pacific Northwest, where pursuits such as hiking and kayaking take precedent over more rigorous activities -- say, discoursing on Redskins history.
"True-blue Seahawks fans are very knowledgeable about the sport," he said. "The game atmosphere is pretty intense, and the acoustics of the stadium are designed to keep it loud. When Seattle fans come out, they come out to represent."
The difference, Sridharan said, is that when the Seahawks are off the field, the intensity slackens, whereas in the District, it's in the ether, on the radio, leading the news, water-cooler topic number one.
"Generally, people in the Northwest are pretty apathetic about sports," he said. "They've got a strong passion for the outdoors, but football is just something they do for three hours on the weekends."
Not Sridharan. He still has season tickets for the Redskins, flying back to the D.C. area three or four times a year to visit his mother and attend games. This has been a bit of a social obstacle at times, he acknowledges.
"Some women don't understand that I really care about football, and some days are dedicated to television and not climbing mountains," he said. "Sundays are my holy day."
At least Seattle fans are civil. Showing up in the burgundy and gold at Qwest Field isn't likely to draw the type of filthy insults -- or worse -- one would suffer in Philadelphia or New York.
"Seattle folks are far more polite and less rowdy," said Tom Woods, an assistant U.S. attorney who moved to Seattle from the District last year.
And Woods knows about rowdy. He grew up a Redskins fan among Giants in Manhattan. When he would go to games at the Meadowlands, he would muffle his cheering and leave his Redskins jersey in the closet out of concern for his safety. "I'm not a very big guy," he explained.
But today at Qwest, "I'll have no problem wearing my Redskins jersey," Woods said.
Even when she was several months pregnant, Redskins fan Casey Kennedy, an Alexandria native, was berated when she lived in New York City and rooted for the Redskins.
Her Seattle counterparts are far more tolerant. Not long after she moved here in 2004, Kennedy, 38, had to solicit donations from Seahawks executives as part of her job as a logistics director for the American Heart Association. The first thing they asked her was to state her team loyalties.
"Right there, in the middle of the Qwest Field offices," Kennedy recalled, "I said proudly: 'The Redskins.' "
Then they asked who her second-favorite team was.
"Whoever is playing Dallas," she answered, quickly adding: "The Seahawks are right up there at number 3."
Kennedy said she has been steadily indoctrinating her 6-year-old son, Owen, but it can be a bit confusing for the boy. "With all the hoopla here, it's been hard to make sure he stays a Redskins fan," she said, explaining that Owen also has a lot of Seahawks gear. Today's playoff matchup left him a little puzzled, she said, and he asked his mother whom they would be rooting for.
"I told him we'll be rooting for the Redskins," Kennedy said. "And he just said, 'Okay.' "
View all comments that have been posted about this article.