On the sunny shores of Lake Washington Aug. 3, roughly 1,500 fans took in the Seattle Seahawks\u2019 first-ever open training camp practice at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton.<\/p>\n
John Carlson, a second-year tight end, was enthusiastic about practicing in front of fans for the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt brings a new excitement to practice and kind of livens things up a little bit,\u201d he said. \u201cIt makes it a little more competitive out there. It\u2019s fun to have the fans out there because obviously without the fans we can\u2019t do what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fans aren\u2019t allowed to park at the VMAC, so they must park at The Landing and ride a shuttle to practice. The shuttle system ran smoothly as buses took off every few minutes and the ride was short. Once at the VMAC, fans can sit on a grassy berm or stand next to the fence surrounding the practice fields on both the east and south sides.<\/p>\n
With just a short metal fence separating them from the on-field action, fans had a great view of the players.<\/p>\n
The crowd erupted in cheers on a number of great catches by T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Deon Butler and other recievers. At one point defensive tackle Craig Terrill even implored the crowd to get loud by waving his hands up.<\/p>\n
Players occasionally interacted with fans while standing on the sidelines \u2013 a simple turn and thumbs up, for example \u2013 but it was mostly about business during the practice session.<\/p>\n
It was a different story after the roughly two-hour training session, as many players stayed outside to mingle with fans, sign autographs and take pictures.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s very important to reach out to the fans because without their support we wouldn\u2019t get paid money to play football,\u201d said Carlson, one of the players who stayed on the field the longest. \u201cThey showed a tremendous amount of support last year even though we didn\u2019t produce the wins we probably should have. So it\u2019s just a small way to say \u2018thanks\u2019 to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carlson and the rest of the players were glad to finally put on full pads and get some contact during practice. Through the spring practices, the team didn\u2019t wear pads and there was minimal contact during drills.<\/p>\n
\u201cPracticing without pads isn\u2019t really football,\u201d Carlson said. \u201cOnce you put the pads on you start to get sore. You start to hit people a little bit. That\u2019s when it starts to feel like training camp.\u201d<\/p>\n
After his rookie training camp started in Kirkland and was run by former coach Mike Holmgren, Carlson said things this season are a little different.<\/p>\n
For one, breaks between two-a-day practices are longer. Carlson takes the time to go home (he lives near the VMAC), study the playbook and get off his feet.<\/p>\n
The practices are also very high tempo under new coach Jim Mora. But even with the small changes, it\u2019s still training camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cTraining camp is training camp. It\u2019s a grind,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve just got to get through it. You use this time to improve and gel.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Adam McFadden can be reached at amcfadden@rentonreporter.com or 425-255-3484<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the sunny shores of Lake Washington Aug. 3, roughly 1,500 fans took in the Seattle Seahawks\u2019 first-ever open training camp practice at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton. John Carlson, a second-year tight end, was enthusiastic about practicing in front of fans for the first time. \u201cIt brings a new excitement to practice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":6825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-6824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6824"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6824"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}