Fortunes flipped in Seattle sports

By Ben Miller

Oct 12, 2004, 12:00 AM

During this election year, we have heard the expression "flip-flop" used over and over again. While it serves its purpose for the candidates, I cannot think of a better term to describe the current state of affairs in the Seattle sports scene. It accurately describes the descent of teams that only a few years ago represented greatness in our eyes, to what everyone now writes off as just downright awful. At the same time, those teams, which we may have passed quickly by while reading the sports section not too long ago, have now caught our eyes and grabbed our attention. It seems like just yesterday we were praising Rick Neuheisel and watching Marques Tuiasosopo lead the 2000 Husky football team to a Rose Bowl victory against Purdue. Today, Neuheisel is gone, our coach is on a hot seat that heats up more and more with each passing day and we have yet to see one quarterback play an entire game for a team that finally notched its first win of the season last Saturday against San Jose State. The UW football program is not the only team on a radical downswing lately. The Seattle Mariners have averaged 98 wins a season during the last four years, going to the American League Championship Series twice and tying the record for most wins all-time for a season in 2001. This year, things were a bit different. The M's finished the season just one loss shy of 100 defeats, and players who started the season in the minors played large roles in the parent club by the end of the year. The '90-win seasons have ended, and in their place is a rebuilding project. Another project is the Supersonics. Seattle was one of the NBA's best teams in the 90s. Led by Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton, Seattle went to the NBA Finals in 1996 and even led the league in wins during the 1993-94 season. Lately, the Sonics have been stuck in a never-ending cycle of mediocrity. They do not possess the talent to advance far into the playoffs, but are not terrible enough to get a high first-round draft pick that could add talented players needed to compete for a title. Yet, failure and misery are not the only things Emerald City sports fans must witness. The Seattle Seahawks, who have only won one playoff game in my lifetime, were picked by many magazines and analysts before this season to win the National Football Championship. The squad has jumped out to 3-1 and even with yesterday's meltdown to the Rams, the young defense looks good enough to make the predictions correct. While the Seahawks could be playing in the Super Bowl, an exciting Washington men's basketball team will be on the court. With coach Lorenzo Romar at the helm, the Huskies look primed to take the Pac-10 and the rest of the college basketball world by storm this year after last week's verbal commitments of Jon Brockman and Martell Webster. As for this season, anything seems possible. Junior Nate Robinson and company looked like they could have beaten almost anyone at the end of last season, only losing to UAB in the NCAA first round last year because of an off-balance, desperation three-point shot as the shot clock went off late in the game. So, while the Mariners just ended a dreadful season and the Husky football team seems to be in the middle of one, their descending paths have spiked upward trends in other sports around the sound. If the politicians are looking for "flip-flops," they need to look no further than the state of Seattle sports.

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