Matt Hasselbeck needs to clear something up.
He’s tired of having people say that the main reason he’s playing in the NFL is because of the skills he inherited from his father.
Sure, Don Hasselbeck played nine seasons of pro football, but Matt isn’t just a product of his father’s genes.
"The truth is, my mom was really the athlete," said Hasselbeck, the Seattle Seahawks’ 28-year-old quarterback. "She’s an athlete."
Betsy Hasselbeck proved this to her oldest son when Matt was in the sixth grade. Betsy was playing in a recreational women’s soccer league at the time and often spoke of her athletic exploits. Finally, Matt had had enough. He challenged her to a foot race.
"I was the fastest kid in my class," Matt recalled last week, "and she smoked me. She still lets me know about it."
While not all mothers have such a genealogical tie to their sons’ athletic success, almost all of them have had a profound — albeit often overlooked — effect.
The Hasselbeck family is a perfect example, with three sons (Matt and Tim in the NFL, Nathanael at Boston College) as well as a father who played football. Betsy represented the bonding circle in the Hasselbecks’ football-shaped world.
She grew up with seven brothers who played football and was always a big sports fan. But in Betsy’s day, it wasn’t popular for high school girls to compete, so she took to cheerleading instead.
"I never had any idea how much shaking those pom poms would carry over to my adult life," Betsy Hasselbeck said. "I kept on encouraging my husband and my boys on the football field."
At least Betsy’s husband got to see the glamorous side of football. Some football wives have to start at the bottom.
Peg Huard’s first move after her 1972 marriage was to White Swan, an Indian Reservation outside of Yakima where husband Mike had been hired for his first high school coaching job. The Huards got married on a Saturday, and Mike started work on Monday.
"For me, (football) was a way of life from the beginning," Peg said.
In addition to being married to a football coach — Mike Huard went on to Foster High School in Tukwila and then had a long and successful run at Puyallup High — Peg had three sons who played the sport.
"She was a coach’s wife and a sports mom. She probably lost out on something," said Brock Huard, Peg’s second son and a backup quarterback for the Seahawks. "It would have probably been ideal if she had had a girl, too. But she was a great mom."
Sue Boone also knows what it’s like to be around athletes, but her family’s sport of choice was baseball. She married a baseball player whose father was a major leaguer and eventually had three boys who played the sport. Husband Bob Boone played 19 seasons in the majors before becoming a manager, then sons Bret, Aaron and Matthew went on to play professionally as well.
"Baseball was pretty much our life," said Bret Boone, the Seattle Mariners’ second baseman. " … As players now, we realize the sacrifices our wives have to make. It’s not an easy life."
When some people think of sports mothers, they often picture a soccer mom berating the coach for not letting her kid play. But there is a lot more that goes into it.
Mothers sometimes serve as a buffer between the father’s high expectations and the child’s inability to live up to them. Moms encourage their kids through discouraging times — both on and off the field. And perhaps most important of all, they often serve as a personal chauffeur from one event to the next.
"With three boys, it was just non-stop," Brock Huard said. "Year after year after year after year, from football to basketball to baseball to soccer."
"I didn’t ever think of it as an effort," his mother said. "I actually miss those days."
Some moms still relish their roles, even if they’ve since become grandmothers. Rose Strong, whose son Mack plays for the Seahawks, still takes part in the Pro Football Players Mothers Association. Now six years old, the PFPMA allows NFL moms to share stories with other NFL moms. They also use their children’s success to help raise awareness for causes like breast cancer research and families on welfare.
There are more than 100 mothers in the program, many of whom are still adjusting to the sight of their "babies" getting banged around on the field.
"On Sundays," Rose Strong said, "it’s very nerve-wracking."
Not that Rose spends game days with hands covering her face.
"She’s the most vocal coach in the stands," said her husband, Mack Sr. "But it’s pretty much the same thing: ‘Put Mack in the game! Give Mack the ball!’ "
Many mothers of adults were discouraged to ever compete in sports when they were younger. Title IX and a number of other societal factors mean that their daughters have more opportunities.
Nancy Bird encouraged daughter Sue to participate in sports at an early age.
"My mom was the first person to put a ball of any kind in my hand," said Sue Bird, the star guard of the Seattle Storm. "She was the first person to teach me how to swing a bat. My dad was around, too — don’t get me wrong. But my mom was definitely a presence in my sports life."
Because Nancy Bird didn’t get many opportunities to play sports in high school, it took her a little while to understand the games her daughter grew up playing.
"And that was a good thing," Sue Bird said. "Regardless of if I had 30 points, or zero and eight turnovers, she was going to give me a hug and tell me what a great job I did."
Tina O’Neill also used sports as a bonding experience with her four children. She has a son who plays college baseball, as well as another who is in junior high school, but O’Neill’s claims to fame are daughters Kellie and Kristen. The O’Neill sisters were basketball stars at Meadowdale High School and the University of Washington.
"For the whole family, sports were something fun to do," Tina said. "We bonded through sports, but we could have bonded over any number of things. It just so happens that sports were something we shared."
Although she never played organized basketball, Tina held her own … for a while.
"I’ve got the ugliest shot in the world, but I could beat both of them in H-O-R-S-E," she said, "until they got to high school."
Sports can be fun, but they can also become overwhelming.
Betsy Hasselbeck recalls times when her life seemed like non-stop football. Her husband and sons would come home from a Pop Warner game, watch college football on television, then slip in a videotape from the game they played earlier in the day.
"And then they would watch SportsCenter to see replays of the games they had watched on TV," she said. "I remember a point thinking: Ugh, I need a recital or something. (Husband Don) would look at me and say, ‘What? I thought you liked football.’ I said, ‘I do. But sometimes I need something else.’ "
That’s all changed now that Betsy Hasselbeck has granddaughters, so she’s looking forward to a different relationship that involves dolls and playing dress-up. But Betsy doesn’t regret her gridiron-dominated life.
"I always thought I was meant to put bows in little girls’ hair," she said. "But I saw how it worked out, with (the Hasselbeck brothers’) dad getting so involved in their lives, and it couldn’t have been better. He got to take them into the locker room, and no one’s daughter got to do that."
The newest generation of Hasselbecks won’t have any such perks, but they’ll boast some impressive athletic genes.
Matt’s daughters, Mallory and Annabelle, have a father, uncle and grandfather who played in the NFL, a mother (Sarah) who played field hockey at Boston College, and a grandmother who might be the best athlete of all. So there’s no limit to where athletics could take Mallory and Annabelle Hasselbeck.
Although they’ll have plenty of opportunities not afforded to the women who preceded them, there is one tradition that seems to be timeless.
Whether it’s a WNBA game, a Mariners game or even the Super Bowl, any athlete who finds the camera pointed in his or her direction will undoubtedly say two words that mean so much.
Hi, Mom.
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