BOISE, Idaho — THIS DAY IN SPORTS…June 15, 1948:
The birthday of the coach who took the Seattle Seahawks to their first Super Bowl in 2006. Mike Holmgren had already gone to two Super Bowls with the Green Bay Packers, winning it all in 1997. With the Seahawks, he won five division titles, with the high point coming in the 2005 season, when quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, NFL MVP Shaun Alexander and crew captured the NFC Championship before falling to the Pittsburgh Steelers 21-10 in Super Bowl XL. The officiating that day took away, at best, all of Seattle’s momentum — and, at worst, two potential Seahawks touchdowns. But that’s a story for another day.
Holmgren was a star quarterback at Lincoln High in San Francisco — then was a backup QB at USC in the late 1960s. He was a sophomore when the Trojans won the 1967 national championship. Holmgren was chosen in the eighth round of the 1970 NFL Draft by the St. Louis Cardinals and also went to camp with the New York Jets, but he never played in the NFL. His first college coaching job was as offensive coordinator at San Francisco State. Holmgren’s career then took off as he worked as QB coach under Lavell Edwards at BYU from 1982-85 (including the 1984 national championship season).
Holmgren’s work at BYU caught the eye of San Francisco 49ers legend Bill Walsh, who hired him in 1986. He coached Joe Montana and Steve Young as the Niners won Super Bowls after the 1988 and 1989 seasons. That led to his first NFL head coaching job in Green Bay in 1992. Holmgren took Brett Favre and ran with him, and the Packers made back-to-back Super Bowls after the 1996 and 1997 campaigns, winning the first one 35-21 over the New England Patriots.
In 1999, Holmgren left the Packers to join the Seahawks, and he immediately broke a 10-year playoff drought for the franchise. In the aforementioned 2005 season, Seattle posted a club-best 13-3 record that included an 11-game winning streak. The last of Holmgren’s 10 seasons with the Seahawks was 2008 — he had announced it early in the year. He later served a three-year stint as president of the Cleveland Browns (that didn’t work out). Holmgren is not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but he is in the Seahawks Ring of Honor. Mike Holmgren…75 years old today.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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