Seahawks
No longer about being No. 1 for Alexander

By Greg Bishop
Seattle Times staff reporter

PHOTOS BY ROD MAR / THE SEATTLE TIMES Valerie Alexander, left, says daughter Heaven changed Shaun's life. He's "more sensitive, more of a nurturer," Valerie says.

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Shaun Alexander wants his story to start this way.

He wants you to understand he's Mr. Average Guy, a businessman with business mentors, a running back always blessed with great left tackles, a husband still learning how to raise a family, a cut-up who stole from his brother every joke he ever told.

He's Mr. Average Guy, Alexander says again.

"Except maybe a little better looking."

He smiles when he says this — that wide, toothy, fit-for-a-dentistry-brochure grin that reassures and soothes and angers and forces some people to grit their teeth.

People read into that smile like it serves as a window into the dichotomy of Alexander's soul. Is he sincere or fake? Selfish or selfless? Arrogant or amiable?

His story is a collection of perceptions. How Alexander, 27, wants you to perceive him. How you actually do.

And if you really want to know why Alexander is leading the NFC in rushing, if you want a peek into the foundation he built last summer for the best season of his career, you start there — with all the confusion and perceptions he's attempting to clear up.

Still, people remain confused, if not a little skeptical. This is, after all, a contract year.

"Contract?" Alexander asks, playing with his words, adding a dramatic flair like Dr. Evil in Austin Powers. "I want $150 MILL-ion."

He pauses, smiling once again.

"Just kidding."

Today Seattle vs. Buffalo at Qwest Field, 1:15 p.m., Ch. 7

Is he?

And you wonder: Just how different is this Shaun Alexander from the one Seahawks teammates considered me-first before this season? Just how much has changed?

"Everything," Alexander says.

Log cabin. Sandpoint, Idaho. Before the start of training camp.

	ROD MAR / THE SEATTLE TIMES A baby daughter and a talk with his wife and best friend have shown the Seahawks' ace running back that life is not just about bettering himself.

Alexander is sitting in front of a log fire with teammate Heath Evans and their wives. They're overlooking a deck overlooking the lake, discussing team issues Alexander himself seems to overlook.

A month from now, this could be the conversation that saved the Seahawks' season.

Spontaneous and enlightening, they plunge into perception, exploring an issue Alexander says he never really thought about, contemplating his chemistry with teammates.

"Shaun, you love everybody," his wife Valerie starts. "You'll go up to a stranger and tell them how great they are. You're warm. You tell them about the Lord. But when it comes to your team, it doesn't appear like that. You don't want to lose the most important part, your essence, which is being impactful to the people you're around."

"The team sees this as selfishness, as prideful, as all about you," Evans continues. "You never think anything of it. But our team takes it as, 'Wow. It's just all about you.' "

The solution seems so elementary, so Dr. Phil. By separating business and pleasure, Alexander built a great wall between himself and teammates with whom he wasn't friends.

Perceptions — arrogant, selfish, aloof, a soft runner with poor practice habits — serve as bricks even his Pro Bowl performances on Sunday can't crack.

Alexander thought that's what everybody wanted. Business as, well, business. You're the quarterback, you throw. You're the blocker, you block. You're in the public-relations office, you set up interviews.

Everybody performs and everybody wins.

And now, in order to fix everything, the friendly guy with the charismatic smile needs only to make more friends. To make football fun again. To turn business associates into family.

The minute Alexander arrived in Cheney, he went searching for teammates to make amends with. He started by apologizing to Matt Hasselbeck, taking teammates out to dinner, reiterating to his blockers how important they were to his success.

By the end of camp, Alexander had apologized to virtually half the team — players, coaches, front-office types, even people in the public-relations office.

"I'm going to make an effort to let you know that, man, I'm sorry for just treating you like a businessperson," Alexander told them. "From now on, I'm going to treat you like a brother."

ROD MAR / THE SEATTLE TIMES, 2001 Alexander became a household name with his 266-yard performance against the Oakland Raiders during a nationally televised Sunday night game in 2001.

Alexander returned from training camp a different person, the burden of business lifted from his broad shoulders, free to run like he never ran before. The Seahawks returned from camp a different team — their star running back preaching the company motto, practicing harder, breaking down the walls.

"He was completely different," Valerie says. "Even in our conversations about football, there wasn't as much of a burden there. He could say, 'Some people might not like me, but I've done everything I could do to make it better.' Shaun is one of those people who doesn't know he's doing anything wrong. He showed them the guy he really is, instead of this image of him being selfish."

The Seahawks' locker room. Kirkland. Earlier this week.

A list of the 10 richest people in America hangs inside his locker. Alexander uses it to "set my sights on the finish line." Displayed on an adjacent shelf is a hat inscribed with the logo for the upcoming Super Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla.

There's another side to Shaun Alexander that comes bursting out of the corners of his mouth, an aura of supreme confidence wrapped inside the simplicity of the smile that guides perception.

"A lot of people try to be perfect or they try to have this appearance where they're perfect," Alexander says. "For me, people mistake confidence with trying to be perfect. I, by no means, think I'm anywhere close to perfect. At the same time, I have confidence."

Perception forms the line he toes, separating that confidence from arrogance, depending on the viewpoint.

"He understands that," says Owen Hauck, his coach at Boone County High School in Kentucky. "But he's not going to get into that conversation. That's the way that he is, and he's not going to change for anybody."

Boone County was where Alexander replaced the injured starting tailback his sophomore year and ran for a touchdown the first time he touched the football. It was where he didn't miss a day of school in 12 years, where he served as class president the last four, where his number 37 was retired — while he was still in high school.

In college at Alabama, Alexander needed police escorts to get around, becoming a bona fide Beatle in the South. His hometown of Florence, Ky., named a street "Shaun Alexander Way."

"I can't tell you how many people approach me about him," says Mike DuBose, his coach at Alabama. " 'Did you really coach Shaun Alexander? You know Shaun Alexander?' He's an icon in the state of Alabama. It's amazing to them that anybody coached him, period."

	ROD MAR / THE SEATTLE TIMES Alexander (hugging teammate Bobby Engram before a game) has learned that business and pleasure can mix.

In the NFL, his legend grows — adding to the confidence, the aura, the confusion. After he tore through the Oakland defense en route to 266 yards and three touchdowns in 2001, then-Raiders coach Jon Gruden said, "I don't know if that was Alexander or Jim Brown out there."

"It's just amazing that when people talk about the best running backs in the league, he isn't mentioned," Seahawks fullback Mack Strong says. "His should be one of the first two names that come out of anybody's mouth. His style is so different than any other running back in this league."

"He's the best in the league," Dolphins linebacker Zach Thomas says.

But people still wonder why Alexander exudes such confidence, why he's smiling after losses, why it took him four NFL seasons and a trip to Idaho for the humbling to happen.

They see the rushing yards, the touchdowns, the productivity.

And they scoff: It's a contract year.

That it is. Alexander says his people talked to the Seahawks twice this season, and both times, with a dozen other unrestricted free agents to think about, the Seahawks were not ready.

Alexander says he has a value in his mind he thinks he's worth, one he has held since entering the league. That value, which he won't share, is what he says it will take for the Seahawks to resign him.

"I love everything about Seattle," Alexander says. "At the same time, there are also some things that I feel could be better.

"Is it (that number) negotiable? It can be negotiable for somebody else. It's almost like there's a family bond that you hold people close to you up to a higher standard. I expect the Seahawks, the city and the organization to do more than another random city."

Kinlow's Barbershop. Tacoma. Tuesday afternoon.

Alexander sits underneath a makeshift tent being pelted by heavy rain, then moves inside to break out that smile in dozens of photographs for citizens of Tacoma on a day when Kinlow's opens its doors at 56th and Portland for free haircuts and free food and free Shaun Alexander signatures.

Heath Evans helped Alexander see the light.

Jason Kinlow, the shop's owner and team barber, says Alexander never turns down a request. From his perception, Alexander — who mentors young men for his Shaun Alexander Foundation and recently released a children's book, "Alexander the Great" — is "the most humble person I've ever met."

"How do people perceive me?" Alexander asks. "It depends on where it's at."

The community: "That guy is really, really nice."

The church: "This person really, really loves the Lord."

The public: "He's a great guy. Or he's stubborn. Or he's a ham. Or he's focused. That's kind of weird, too, a focused ham. That's why I'm confusing to some people."

The Seahawks: "He's different."

Which works in two ways. Before, he was just different. An enigma hidden behind the walls he worked so hard to build. Now, he's different than before.

Legs faster from training with Olympic-caliber sprinting coach Joe Gentry, who calls Alexander's cell phone after big games and screams, "What did I tell you? The baddest man on the planet right there."

"I don't know how you say it," offensive coordinator Gil Haskell says. "Maybe he's just grown up a little bit."

The birth of his daughter, Heaven, changed his life, Valerie says. It made Alexander "more sensitive, more of a nurturer." He sharpened the focus of his foundation, centering on mentoring young men.

Ultimately, though, the course of Alexander's life until retirement weaves through football. And it's in that respect that he sees the most significant growth.

"Shaun has talent," running backs coach Stump Mitchell says after comparing Alexander to Marcus Allen. "What I try to get Shaun to see is that he's not the caller. Coach Holmgren does not call this game on Sunday only. He's already visualized the situations. Last year, (Shaun) was better. This year, he's exceptionally better."

	NEIL BRAKE / AP Alexander was worshipped at Alabama, where he is still an icon five years after the end of a record-breaking, ego-building career.

So what's left for Alexander, besides another trip to the Pro Bowl, a Seahawks playoff run, the rest of the best season of his career and becoming one of the 10 richest people in America?

"We're taking over the world," he says, smiling once again. "I'm going to bring you along with me to just write about it."

Fair enough. And as his story began how he wanted, so it ends.

"When I was a freshman at Alabama, my coach told us something Isaac Newton wrote. If it seems like I've seen the world and stood on top of the world, it's because I was sitting on the shoulders of giants. Which means, I surrounded myself with great people."

One of which Alexander is growing into.

Greg Bishop: 206-464-3191 or gbishop@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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