Knox Taking This Exhibition in Stride : Rams: Despite his nine seasons in Seattle, coach downplays any special significance of game between his current and former teams.
Leading a new team into his old city, Chuck Knox won’t allow himself to get lost in sentimentality or public bitterness. But that doesn’t mean he won’t get lost.
The Kingdome, where the Seahawks play host to the Rams at 6 tonight in the exhibition opener for both teams, is no longer home. And the locker room he goes to, along with every other experience tonight, will be undiscovered territory for him.
Chuck Knox lost in the Kingdome?
“I’ve never been in that other locker room,” said Knox, who coached the Seahawks nine seasons before resigning at the end of last season. “I know generally speaking where it is, but I’ve never been over there.
“I’m sure we’ll have somebody up there who can show me where it is.”
This is the stadium where it ended for Knox--oddly enough, against the Rams in the regular-season finale, which also was John Robinson’s last game with the Rams. And this is where it begins again, with Tom Flores coaching the Seahawks and Knox the Rams.
From the moment the exhibition schedule was announced, Knox has tried to downplay any significance of playing the first game of his second Ram coaching stint against the last team he coached.
Just another game, he has said more than once. No special meaning. It doesn’t count in the standings, Knox says, the only difference is which side of the field he’ll be standing on.
But for a man who came to define much of what the Seattle sports scene was all about during the last nine seasons and then was unceremoniously pushed away, this game has implications so obvious that it is hard to ignore them.
“I’m not going to make any special effort to go up there and win that game, have a Pyrrhic victory that would cost us more in the end than it is worth,” Knox said this week.
“(Coaching against many of his old players), that’ll be different, sure. Some people I’ve coached with, some people I started with in coaching, are still up there.
“It’ll be kind of difficult, different to look across and see (Seattle assistant head coach/defense) Tom Catlin on the other side when he’s been with me for 19 years. . . . I have a lot of respect and admiration for him, obviously. So that’ll be a little different.”
Some of those who followed him from Seattle to the Rams, who were there as Knox’s influence with management waned, say they want to win this game for him and strike a blow at Seattle owner Ken Behring.
They say that because Behring, who bought the team in 1988, never had confidence in Knox and stripped away most of his football powers, his resignation was just a matter of time.
Knox’s record in Seattle was 80-63 with four playoff berths and one AFC West title. But from 1989-91, with Behring becoming more active and with Flores, installed as team president, assuming personnel decisions, the team went 23-25. Last year, Seattle finished 7-9.
“I’m sure Coach Knox (has) got to be anxious about going back there and also showing the fans of Seattle that maybe they did make a mistake by not keeping him,” said Ram receiver Jeff Chadwick, who played under Knox the last three seasons in Seattle.
“But the thing, too, is he’s happy to be here. Out here, they’re working with Chuck. In Seattle, they weren’t working with Chuck Knox. They were actually opposed to everything he was trying to get done, get accomplished.
“The last two years that he spent in Seattle, it was Chuck Knox the head coach, but it was management making all the important decisions.
“When a head coach doesn’t get that type of cooperation from management to run the team as he sees fit, you’re always going to be struggling.”
In that Dec. 22 night game last season, Knox’s Seahawks beat Robinson’s Rams 23-9, ending both of their nine-year tenures with the teams. Afterward in the home locker room, the Seattle veterans gave Knox an emotional farewell.
“We got up for the game because we knew,” Chadwick said. “We didn’t know that Chuck was going to be with the Rams, but we knew that we wanted him to go out in style.”
Ram assistant head coach/defense Joe Vitt, one of five former Seattle assistants to join Knox in Anaheim, says it will be a night of mixed emotions and warm memories for everyone who used to be in Seattle. But it will also serve as a reminder of the struggles in the past few years.
“There’s no question it’s going to be strange,” Vitt said. “Here’s a place where we coached for nine years, and some of the greatest memories of my life are in that building--some big, big wins.
“On the second hand, this has been a tremendous situation down here for us. The management has really shown a commitment to winning by signing our draft choices and trying to get the veterans into camp. This is the best I’ve felt about football since 1983, Chuck’s first year in Seattle.
“All those fond memories, I’m glad I have them. But they’re in the past now.”
As an instant comparison Knox and his Seattle compatriots do not publicly make, it took the Seahawks the entire exhibition season and into the regular season to sign 1990 No. 1 pick and defensive centerpiece Cortez Kennedy, the third pick overall in that draft. Kennedy, an All-Pro now, was a non-factor his rookie season.
This year, the Rams took defensive centerpiece Sean Gilbert with the third overall pick, and signed him the day they drafted him. Gilbert, who will miss tonight’s game because of an ankle injury, is expected to start all season.
Vitt said he had no doubt that the Seattle fans in attendance tonight will share many of the warm memories.
“I’m sure Chuck will get a good reception,” Vitt said. “He’s the first true winning coach in Seattle sports history over a long period of time. We were there for nine years, and we had winning teams. Chuck, he was Seattle. So it’s going to be a warm welcome.”