SHORELINE – Before Shaun Alexander, Matt Hasselbeck and Mike Holmgren, there was Mama Blue.
Through the team’s first playoff run in 1983, its losing seasons in the 1990s and a threat to move the team out of Seattle, Patti Hammond of Shoreline, aka Mama Blue, has bled blue and green.
Chris Goodenow / For The Herald
“They’re just like your kids,” Hammond said of Seahawks players. “You don’t give up on your kids.”
Hammond, 75, a season ticket holder from the franchise’s inception, has attended nearly every home game and several road games a year since the Seahawks first took to the Kingdome turf in 1976.
The Seahawks and the National Football League recognized Hammond’s loyalty in 1999 when she and 31 other fans, one from each NFL team, were enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
Hammond, a semiretired hairstylist, and her 74-year-oldhusband will be in Detroit on Sunday when Seattle plays the biggest game of its 30-year history in Super Bowl XL against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Ford Field.
The couple plan to celebrate their 57th wedding anniversary today in Detroit.
“This is a great anniversary present,” Patti Hammond said. “The kids and grandkids knew we wanted to go. They all got together and got airfare and hotel before I had to think about it. How good is that?”
Someone offered $10,000 for their tickets, which cost $600 each, but Hammond turned them down.
It takes Hammond about 90 minutes to prepare for each game. She wears a blue wig, blue-and-green boas around her neck and blue-and-green beads, eyeliner and glasses, along with a Seahawks shirt, sweater or sweat shirt.
“It’s got to be blue or it don’t do,” Hammond said.
In other local Seahawks news:
* Maltby Christian Assembly in Snohomish will not have services Sunday evening so folks can watch the Super Bowl on 14-foot screens at the church. Not to be outdone, Allen Creek Community Church in Marysville will show the game on a 15-foot screen.
* Comcast in Everett is one of numerous businesses allowing employees to wear Seahawks attire to work this week. About 450 employees rallied Thursday for the team.
* Some businesses in Monroe and elsewhere have put up signs saying they will close early on Sunday because of the game.
* Kim Fowler of Stanwood will go to the Super Bowl after all, after winning two free tickets from Windermere real estate offices in Stanwood and Camano Island. She was one of the 30-year ticket holders who were not picked in the Seahawks lottery.
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