Catching up with Shaun Alexander

No football player has closer ties to both the University of Alabama and the city of Seattle than Shaun Alexander.

The running back from Florence, Ky., played for the Crimson Tide from 1996-99 and finished as the school's all-time leading rusher with more than 3,500 yards to go with 41 touchdowns. He was a first-round draft choice of the Seattle Seahawks, becoming NFL Player of the Year in 2005 with an eight-year tenure with the team that saw him finish as that franchise's all-time leading rusher with more than 9,400 yards and 100 touchdowns.

He finished his career playing a few games with the Washington Redskins in 2008.

With Alabama playing the Washington Huskies in the Peach Bowl semifinal of the College Football Playoff on New Year's Eve, this seemed like a good time to catch up with Alexander.

Q: Let's start with the basics. You're living in Washington, D.C., now?

A: My wife and I, after I retired we were walking to a grocery store and just cracking jokes and thinking about life, this was in 2009, and realized we'd been in there about 20 minutes and no one had asked for autograph or wanted to take a picture.

We were like, 'Whoa.' It was a beautiful time to know there was a shift, the time was changing, and its all good. So we figured this would be a great place for us to, you know, kind of get out of the football world as a player and realize what we were going to next as a family man and a businessman and a husband and an ex-player.

Q: And D.C. is definitely a place where a football player may not be the biggest celebrity.

A: That's correct. So we bought a little place on the outskirts of D.C., on the Virginia side.

Q: Now you are doing a podcast these days? What can you tell us about that?

A: I was asked to do a radio show, of course, with all the sports affiliates – ESPN, college football or pro, and the NFL Network – and I wasn't sure I wanted to do that. Of course, a lot of Christian radio stations asked me to be a part of that deal, and a good buddy of mine is a producer. He is co-host of my show, "Finish the Game," and he's also a producer for the Washington Wizards basketball games, he does a handful of their games, and he said, "You can do both, man. I love doing both."

So we came up with the idea of how can we encourage and challenge people to be MVPs in their community: great husbands and fathers, for men, great impacts to their community and help them finish the game of life, because that's where you are when you retire. OK, what can I go finish? In football, you always finish the championship or you finish the run or you finish your career off. You want to do that. We wanted to be able to take all the people that I've met, from fame to sports to all walks of life, how can we help them gain insight from the people I've gained insight from. That's how we created "Finish the Game."

So we're on PodcastOne, which is podcastone.com/finish-the-game, and we won't be long before we pull the trigger on radio stations that we're going to go to. We're going to do that, and right now "Finish the Game" is angled toward sports and life lessons through sports and through people that I know. That's just once a week. We will slowly slide it toward and add on parenting and marriage, so there will probably be about six segments a week. But the basics will be sports, life lessons and marriage – my wife and I will be married here 15 years here soon – and parenting, which my wife and I really will do that show together, which will be a lot of fun because we're pregnant with our ninth child.

We go places and people say, "It's amazing to see your kids and your life and this and that," because they just know me from my teenage years, 19 at Alabama when I was there and now they see me 39 (years old) and they're like, "Oh my gosh, married, nine kids – I feel like I've done life with you, how are you doing this?" So, you know, I'm teaching these little tips about doing marriage and children the best way I can, to help other people.

Q: Well you certainly have a lot of experience in that realm now.

A: Yes, it's going pretty cool, it's going pretty cool. It's good.

Q: Let me steer you back toward football and your experiences. How did your time at Alabama impact you? What stands out to you when you look back?

A: Oh gosh, to give you a fast-forward version, I learned so much about creating a movement. I felt like Alabama, it's bigger than any player that ever gets there because as soon as you get there you're carrying this torch that's been passed from generation to generation. You take great honor. You've got to be wired a little bit different to even carry the torch, it's a great honor when it's yours.

That was great, but then I also learned little things about myself. Like, I give so much credit to Coach (Ivy) Williams (running backs coach) and Coach (Gene) Stallings – they would not let me compete against other people because they didn't think my talent would be pushed to the highest level if I was competing against other people. So they would say, "OK, this person ran for seven and you ran for eight, so you might have beat everybody but you didn't beat us because you didn't surpass expectations." They raised the expectations on me as a player so it molded me to be that same way. Well hold on: If my best is a 10 and I can with with a five, don't do six and look like you blew them out, do 10.

What I did is, I took that same fight that was in Alabama and I took that to Seattle because Bama folks are used to winning. When I got to Seattle, they weren't. I can't take all the credit myself. Coach (Mike) Holmgren was a fine offensive coach and he did a great job drafting the right guys, but you know how it is – the mold of a team, that fire on the inside, I always tell people the coaching wins the first four games, then after that it's players and coaches together, then after you get to the middle of the season it's all players until you get to the end of the season and the playoffs and it comes back to coaches and players.

We just learned how to take over games because we changed like the heart and attitude of football. If you watch Seattle now, they'll remind you of this great college that I'm so in love with, and it's because that was what the plan was for me.

I remember being 6-10 my rookie year and I called up my older brother Durran and I said, "It's going to take a little longer than I thought, but this team will get to the Super Bowl." And that's what it was. The goals and rules were just shifted when I got there, and a lot of it was because of the goals and rules at the University of Alabama.

Q: How did Seattle and the Seahawks impact you as a person and as a player?

A: It was a little bit different because I was not used to – I guess no one is – no one's used to winning not being the goal. It was just a different town. I love it now, I loved it as I left; I really loved the middle of (my time there), I guess. But it was just different. I guess the business of it was totally interesting to me more than anything. It really helped me mature.

I had some great friends that taught me how to be a husband, like (former Seahawks fullback) Mack Strong, and how to be a professional, like (former Seahawks running back) Ricky Watters. He still, to this day, doesn't get the credit that he deserves about how great he was. I mean, literally, you look at the last two backups he had and it was me and Ahman Green – we both have records for different teams: Ahman broke the (rushing) record for the Packers and I broke the record for the Seahawks. We both were taught by Ricky Watters how to be a professional. I honestly feel like he gets a lot of shaft for some of the things he did when he was in his early 20s, mid-20s. He's a 10,000 (yards), 70-touchdown guy, how is he not in the Hall of Fame? How does that happen? Well, when he was in his 20s he acted like an idiot. I'm like, yeah, but we caught him in his 30s and he taught us how to be professionals and break the records of two different teams.

There were just great, great people like Ricky Watters and Mack Strong that I got to be around every day that just really showed me how to be a mature man. Both of those guys are great family men, great fathers, great husbands; they both were All-Pros and superstars and it was great.

I tell you, Seattle, the turnaround of that city, I'm still proud of. You watch them now and they expect to win, and the hurt when they lose – gosh, my first two years we played at Husky Stadium and I don't know if we sold out any games and I'm pretty sure we didn't sell out out first two home games of my third year when I became the main focus, the main face of the team. That was odd for me.

I remember doing an interview, I scored five touchdowns in one half against the Vikings. I remember doing the radio show the next morning ... and he says, "Fans out there listening, I don't know if you know but we have a superstar on this team and this team is about to turn around." You know what I mean, and me, I was like, "Yeah, how do we not know this?" I don't mean about me, but just about football in general.

It was always funny, because my bride, the one I was going to marry, she was a girl I was dating who I was so interested in and I was willing to do anything to woo her. She was the focus of my world and she didn't play football or her brothers didn't play football – she had three older brothers and a younger brother and they were all basketball players. I would say things like, "Hey, I've got tickets to the game, you can sit anywhere in the stadium that you want," and she would say stuff like, "Well, I'm not really into football, I think I'll go to the movies with my sister." That was the attitude of the city because they just weren't winning.

So to see that change and go back to the locker room now – and they honor me so well in many ways – but, gosh, to see how it's done now compared to how it was in the beginning, wow. A compliment from them back in the day would have been, "Man, you're like the biggest name since Steve Largent," and I'd be like, "He played in the '80s, that was 20 years ago." So the torch being passed like it was in Alabama was not quite what I was expecting, but it was good.

Q: What kind of contact have you had over the years with the University of Washington program, if any?

A: That was special because, first of all, when I was there if I wanted to work out or run I always had open doors to come and run or train up in U-Dub's place. Tyrone Willingham was there (as head coach) and I become real close with Jake Locker, who was their quarterback. Those guys on that team and those teams after Tyrone left and (Steve) Sarkisian – he's at Alabama now, I saw him in the locker room (after the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta) and that was great – I just always had opened doors. They made the Huskies a part of my other family.

Even when I got release from Seattle, I would go run there and work out in their indoor facility, which Alabama had in the time when I was playing there – which was another odd thing, because the Bama facilities were better than the Seahawk facilities when I was there. I'd come back home to work out and people would always be like, "Why do you always go back to Alabama and work out?" And I'd be like, "The facilities." Now Seattle is like a mega, dream place, it's awesome; but back then it wasn't so.

I had a great relationship with the (Washington) team chaplain at the time, Greg Alex – he runs the Matt Talbot Center, which is a drug rehabilitation and homeless shelter – and so he was close to everybody and his daughter and my wife were great friends from college, so I would go down to the shelter and go help and talk with some of the people in the shelter. I'd also go to U-Dub and meet some of the guys on the team. It was just a really great bond, a great way for me to kind of get out of football when I wanted to but still be in football.

I still have this heart to always want U-Dub to win. I remember watching U-Dub and Stanford this year, definitely thought Christian McCaffrey was a great football player, you know, I saw that D-line just closing off gaps and cutting him down and closing in, I remember calling some of my buddies that went to U-Dub and saying, "Hey, y'all have got a really good defense, y'all have got a shot." They go on to blow them out and they go on their run and I'd say, "Hey, y'all's team is for real and y'all have got a shot at the final four," but U-Dub has been in such a drought for so long, they're like, "Oh, yeah, whatever, I don't know. We might find a way to lose, but hopefully we don't." No, I'm telling you, this team looks real: speed everywhere, they've got their corners with that attitude and they walk with it, you can't act it, the receivers have got it, I said, "Oh, no, you guys have got that."

So you look up and they start winning and here we go, it's all exciting until Clemson lost and you're like, wait, hold on one second, Bama's going to be No. 1 and U-Dub, the highest they're going to get is No. 4, we're never going to let go of this No. 1. But it's still great, it's exciting. I'm excited for my other college team.

Q: Obviously when you were in your NFL career, you're concentrating on making a living and doing that and your schedule in the fall has you booked every weekend. It seems like since you've retired you've gone a long way in reconnecting with the Alabama program in the last few years. What do you see in this (Nick) Saban machine that has been built?

A: You know, I've seen what the great ones had. Gene Stallings had it, that's what attracted me to Bama when I was in high school. When you see a coach that knows what he knows and knows what he believes in, and he can look an offensive player like me in the face and say, "Hey, I'm going to get the best defensive players in the country, if I just get one you – one offensive special guy – we're going to win, and if I get three of y'all we'll win the national championship." So that's what it is. Saban did it, "Bear" Bryant did it, Coach Stallings, that's how he created it. I see just tons of defensive guys that all have the attitude that we will put our will against anybody, Coach Saban puts them all in the right place, and they run.

I came down for the Iron Bowl and the SEC championship and I remember watching that game and Auburn's got a fine tailback and holes are opening up and I thought, "This could be a gain of seven," and it closed so quick, at the speed of what you'd expect in an NFL game, and this tailback only gains two yards. And I'm like, "Oh yeah, this is going to be that team." This team is so fast that plays that could be nice plays are now just OK plays, and your OK plays become bad plays and your bad plays become interceptions run back for touchdowns. You know what I'm saying? That's what their speed does.

It's so powerful and all of them believe in it. I was talking to (former Alabama and NFL player) Jeremiah Castille about it, and they do what those great defenses do and they actually turn game plans into, not only do you not want to make a mistake, but if you do make a mistake it's going to hurt your team. And no offense wants to go into a game where, "We want to try to score, but we can't make any mistakes because if we make a mistake it's going to make us lose." This defense is amazing for that.

Q: So who wins? Alabama or Washington?

A: I still think that speed kills and defense wins championships. U-Dub's got a fine defense, but I still don't think U-Dub can really handle Bama's speed. It should be 14 (points) but it could be 21, so it will be close on your eyes but not close on the scoreboard.

Q: And the real tough question: Are you an Alabama guy or a Seattle guy?

A: You already know: My blood bleeds crimson. But let me tell you this, when I scored touchdowns in Seattle, all the Seattle fans know what music pumped in the stadium. It wasn't "Sweet Home Seattle." So people still come up to me today, "I remember when you scored your touchdowns, Shaun, 'Sweet Home Alabama.'" They didn't say "Roll Tide Roll" afterwards, but they knew what it was about.

So yes, I am forever a Seattle guy and I am forever a Bama guy, but I am more Bama than Seattle, especially when it comes to college football.