‘12th Man’ huddles up

DETROIT – All week I searched for Seattle Seahawks fans.

Poking around parts of downtown Detroit, scanning each block a few times over, I found only scattered suggestions of the presence of the “12th Man.”

Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald Neil Hart of Everett, known to fellow Seahawks fans as “Kiltman,” gets ready to high-five a passer-by while “Mr. Seahawk” Jeff Schumaier waves in the background Saturday in downtown Detroit.

I should have just followed the signs.

Or the sign.

The single largest cluster of Seahawks fans anywhere in Detroit on Saturday morning could be found on a balcony inside downtown’s Renaissance Center. It’s on the second floor, overlooking Radio Row. It’s become known as the “Hawk’s Nest.”

And behind the blue-and-green-clad fanatics was the only sign I really needed: the familiar green and white circle with a mermaid in the middle – Starbucks.

There’s no doubt the 12th Man will be outnumbered when the Seahawks face off against the Pittsburgh Steelers today in Super Bowl XL, but fans who made the trip didn’t seem to mind.

“They’ve got 11 guys on the field at one time, and so do we,” said Bob Peterson of Everett, who was taking in the enormity of ESPN’s SportsCenter set inside the Ren Cen Saturday afternoon. “It’ll play out on the field.”

Jerry Martinez of Sequim pulled into town Thursday night. He parked his “Seahawks Express” RV – a professionally painted homage to the home team – next to a bar unfortunately called Steel.

Hey, we’re new at this.

“I made the deal with (the bar owner) back in the pre-season,” Martinez said.

Steel became the unofficial Seahawks hub, with Sea Hawkers booster club posters hanging on the wall and Ezell Stephens inside cooking up Ezell’s Famous Chicken.

Cy Elliser, 78, of Puyallup enjoyed a cool beverage and talked about his vintage fashion selection for today’s game. He didn’t quite break out the butterfly collar and bell-bottom jeans, but close.

He had a plain white T-shirt with “Seattle Seahawks” and a football printed on it. He bought it before the Seahawks even played their first game in 1976, wore it the entire inaugural season and put it in a drawer.

“I swore I wouldn’t wear it until the Seahawks made it to the Super Bowl,” Elliser said.

He’s wearing it today.

The 78-year-old accountant made the trip alone. He booked his flight Dec. 1 and knew the moment the Seahawks clinched their spot in the game that he’d be here, even though it meant forking over $2,850 for a ticket.

Elliser could only imagine what his wife, Mary, would have thought about the whole scene. Before she died of cancer in 1982, she was given a football autographed by the entire Seahawks team.

“Oh, she would’ve loved it,” Elliser said. “She was almost as rabid a fan as I was.”

George Janecke of Lynnwood spent the day soaking it all up, visiting the “NFL Experience” and touring downtown Detroit.

“This Super Bowl experience is astounding,” Janecke said, sharing a tidbit about a video that played in a booth at the “NFL Experience.” It highlighted Super Bowl moments of the past.

“It gave us goose pimples,” Janecke said, “because we want to see the Seahawks in that movie next year, winning the Super Bowl.”

Neil Hart of Everett, a Visa Hall of Fans member known as “Kiltman,” made the trip with “Mr. and Mrs. Seahawk” Jeff and DeDe Schumaier of Auburn. Together, they stalked the streets of Detroit with “Painted Hawk,” Bruce McMillan of Fife, and “Cannonball,” Brad Carter of Bonney Lake.

As the band of superfans trekked around the city, people stopped and asked for pictures. McMillan said he had at least 100 photos taken with folks on the street, including tons of Steelers fans.

But Hart said that despite the hoopla downtown, and the growing excitement as the city braced for the big game, the full impact of today’s main event hadn’t yet hit him.

“It’ll hit me probably (today) when the flash cubes all go off,” Hart said. “I heard that just about two minutes before kickoff, there’s flash bulbs everywhere exploding, and that’s the moment.

“Usually, I wear my Seahawks contacts, but for (today), I’m wearing my regular ones because I want to see everything.”

McMillian wasn’t worried about Hawk fans showing up in fewer numbers than Steeler fans as he looked out on the crowd.

“We could be outnumbered 10-to-1 or 100-to-1,” McMillan said. “Whatever it is, I think we’re louder than they are, and if we want to, we can take over that stadium.”