First game was a charm for Hawks

What they remember most is the noise.

"It was beyond belief how loud the fans were," said one player.

The Seahawks' win last Sunday in the NFC Championship Game?

Well, that, too.

But the player in this case was receiver Sam McCullum, and the game he was referring to was the first the Seahawks ever played, on Sept. 12, 1976, at the Kingdome against the St. Louis Cardinals, when the legend of Seattle's 12th Man truly began.

It was the day when a city hungry for pro football finally got a full-course meal.

And though the team was a ragtag bunch of veteran castoffs and untested newcomers, the fans didn't care.

"They were cheering every moment, regardless of if it was — good or bad," said tight end Ron Howard, now the assistant interim principal at Aki Kurose Middle School in Seattle.

There would be a lot of bad that season as the Seahawks finished 2-12, allowing the most points in the NFL (429) while scoring just 229.

But on that September afternoon, the Seahawks were 0-0, full of hope and ready to turn in a performance that would begin a lengthy love affair with their fans.

Jack Patera was named coach on Jan. 3, 1976, and the Seahawks began to assemble a roster. McCullum estimates that 350 players crossed through the doors before the team took the field to play the Cardinals. Some came through the rookie draft or the expansion draft — center Art Kuehn said he remembers finding out he had been picked in the expansion draft by reading it in the newspaper — and many others were free agents.

Though the Seahawks played six preseason games, McCullum said things remained chaotic until the first game.

"The whole week before the game, we would have names on our helmets so we would know who was in the huddle with us," he said. "It's hard to build camaraderie that way."

But through the preseason, a few positions began to be established — a free agent named Jim Zorn won the quarterback job; a rookie named Steve Largent, acquired shortly before the season, got a spot at receiver.

As opening day neared, the Seahawks were two-touchdown underdogs against the Cardinals, who were in their heyday under coach Don Coryell with Jim Hart at quarterback, Seattle native Terry Metcalf at running back and Mel Gray at receiver.

Winning, though, didn't really matter to the fans, most simply happy to finally have an NFL team and ready to embrace the Seahawks. A near-sellout crowd of 58,411 was on hand, paying an average ticket price of $11.40 — the low was $5, the high $14.

"I remember coming out of that tunnel and just the electricity," said Howard, who played for Dallas the year before and would have a career day against the Cardinals, catching seven passes.

Said McCullum: "The level of noise surprised all of us. I had come from Minnesota, where the fans were subdued by comparison."

The game began predictably enough, with the Cardinals running up and down the field against an outmanned Seahawks defense. Seattle had lost a defensive tackle expected to start that day named Al Cowlings — the same man who would drive O.J. Simpson in the infamous white Bronco chase 18 years later — when he failed his physical two days beforehand.

The Cardinals used two Hart touchdown passes to take a 23-3 lead midway through the third quarter.

But then Zorn got hot, throwing a 15-yard TD pass to McCullum late in the third quarter.

The Cardinals, who had gone 11-3 the year before to win the NFC East, took a 30-10 lead early in the fourth quarter, but a 72-yard touchdown pass from Zorn to McCullum re-ignited the Kingdome crowd.

"The whole place just came alive," Hart was quoted as saying in The Seattle Times the next day. And a Zorn scramble for another score made it 30-24 with five minutes left.

Seattle got the ball back at its own 17 with about a minute left and drove to the St. Louis 43 with time remaining for one more play. But a final Zorn pass into the end zone fell incomplete.

The Seahawks had lost, but they had done so with flair — which was to become their trademark for the next few years — and the fans left entertained more than disappointed.

"We knew we'd played pretty well against a pretty good team," said Kuehn.

McCullum remembers leaving the locker room after the game expecting to find an empty stadium. Instead, he said, there were fans everywhere.

"The people were just elated that we were there — not that we had lost or won the game — but just that we were there," he said. "You went to Pioneer Square afterward and there were people everywhere you turned. It was the first game, and it was like we'd been here forever."

Now 30 years later, many of them have been. McCullum, Kuehn and Howard all still live and work in the area, often attending Seahawks alumni functions where fans who remember the enthusiasm of those early years greet them warmly.

"I think [the Super Bowl] is that much more rewarding for those diehard fans," Howard said. "This has always been football country. It's just a matter of having a little luck, staying healthy and having the right coach."

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com