Raider fans live among us

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, November 5, 2006

SEATTLE – John Blalock doesn’t expect you to understand. Not if you’re a Seattle Seahawks fan, Blalock says.

Yes, he likes to get dressed up in a costume every Sunday in the fall. Yes, he paints his face and wears spikes on his shoulders and scares the living bleep out of anyone he passes on his way to a local sports bar. And, yes, he supports a team that has been one of the National Football League’s worst over the past three seasons.

Blalock, an Everett native and 1989 graduate of Everett High School, is a member of the Raider Nation. And he’s proud to say it.

“Every Sunday is Halloween for us,” said Blalock, a displaced fan of the Oakland Raiders. “All week, you can’t wait to put on the pads and have a good time.”

This week, the local chapter of Raider Nation – officially known as the Northwest Raider Booster Club – took Sunday off. But it was worth it.

For the first time since 2001, when the Seahawks switched from the American Football Conference to the National Football Conference, the Raiders will be in town to play a game tonight at Qwest Field.

You could say that the local Raiders fans will be dressed up with someplace to go.

“This is huge for us,” said Blalock, who wears a blue collared shirt while working for Brach’s Candy during the week but goes by the name Inferno on game days. “It’s been so long since we (the Raiders) have played here.

“Even though the rivalry isn’t as huge as it was, it’s still there. There’s a little bit of hatred there.”

During the first 25 years of the Seahawks’ existence, the Raiders were probably their biggest rival.

Both teams played twice a year while competing against each other in the AFC West: once in Seattle, and once in either Oakland or Los Angeles, depending on which city the Raiders were calling home at the time.

The teams also met twice in memorable playoff games in the early 1980s, building animosity that – for some – still remains today.

“Even now, when I see Raiders guys, I don’t like them,” former Seahawks quarterback Dave Krieg said in a phone interview last month. “I just never liked those people.”

That’s the Raiders, who are the NFL’s version of the New York Yankees. For as much fervor as there is from their own fans, there’s just as much passion from those who dislike them.

But those who are in the inner circle remain charmed by what is known as the “Raider mystique.”

“There’s that mystique, but it’s also a family,” said Everett resident Sherry Hoffman, who serves as president of the Northwest Raider Booster Club. “Wherever you go, you see another Raider fan and feel an immediate bond.”

Hoffman is so excited about tonight’s game that she coughed up $235 for a ticket. She didn’t mind the hit to her pocketbook because, the way the NFL schedule works, the Raiders won’t be back in town until 2014.

Blalock will also be there.

“I want to show (Seahawks fans) what being a Raider fan is all about,” Blalock said. “I really want to stick it to them. We’ll all be cheering loud in our silver and black, while they’ll be in their blue and green polo shirts golf-clapping.”

Blalock doesn’t hold back when talking about the difference between fans of his Raiders and the Seahawks. He said Raiders fans are just as passionate even when their team is struggling – the 2006 squad has a 2-5 record and is currently at the bottom of the AFC West – while Seahawks fans are a bit more finicky.

“I’m glad the Seahawks, for their true fans, have been having some success,” Blalock said. “But when they lose one game, it seems like they lose a quarter of their fan base. We’re diehard.

“There’s no black, no Mexican and no white in Raider Nation. It’s all Silver and Black. We’re family. We don’t know each other, but we’re family.”

Tonight, the Northwest members of that family will finally be in the company of their most important members.

“It’ll be another eight years before they’ll be back,” Blalock said. “I want to make sure the Seahawks fans remember us. They’ve never seen anything like us.

“The Seahawks fans can’t go into the (Oakland) Coliseum; that just wouldn’t happen. But we can go anywhere: Denver, Kansas City, Seattle. That’s what being a Raider fan is all about.”

Not that you would understand.