Warner Can Still Inspire Seahawks : Tailback’s Speech Leads to Club’s First Victory of Season

The Seattle Seahawks’ locker room got strangely quiet as Curt Warner started to address a players-only meeting last week.

The softspoken tailback was angry because his teammates had played poorly in losing their first two games of the season. Warner said the team had been torn apart by contract disputes and dissension.

After quoting from the Bible, Warner said his teammates needed to redefine their goals.

“We have our radios on, but we’re not tuned to the same station,” Warner said.

The Seahawks then went out and beat the New England Patriots, 24-3, last Sunday for their first victory.

Did Warner’s speech inspire Seattle?

“I think his speech did a lot,” safety Nesby Glasgow said. “A lot of times when you have team meetings it’s the same old rhetoric: ‘You’ve got to go out and play hard.’ The one thing Curt did was to make us all focus on what needs to be done.”

Glasgow said he was stunned by Warner’s outburst.

“I was somewhat surprised, but once he got to talking, I think everybody felt it was coming from his heart. When you have a guy who’s usually quiet like Curt stand up and talk the way he did, it was inspiring.”

What motivated Warner’s outburst?

“I wasn’t really thinking about whether or not it was going to be inspirational,” Warner said. “It was something I wanted to say because I was mainly talking to myself, as well as the other guys on the team, about what we need to think when we go out and play.”

Warner didn’t just talk, he also played his best game of the season, rushing for a team-high 65 yards. And he did it with a swollen knee.

After undergoing arthroscopic surgery to remove cartilage from his right knee Aug. 7, Warner has flourished. He’s the ninth-leading rusher in the American Football Conference going into Sunday’s game against the Raiders at the Coliseum.

Warner rushed for 1,449 yards to lead the AFC in his rookie season, 1983. But in 1984, he tore ligaments in his right knee in the season opener.

He underwent reconstructive surgery and was in a cast for eight weeks. After a year of extensive rehabilitation, Warner returned and was named the NFL comeback player of the year, rushing for 1,094 yards in 1985. He set a team record by rushing for 1,481 yards in 1986.

But last season, it happened again--he reinjured his right knee. Although this injury wasn’t as severe as the first one, it was depressing.

“It was hard to deal with at first,” Warner said. “But . . . I just thanked the good Lord that he didn’t take it all away from me. I could have turned it a bit more and messed up some ligaments. Then you have to ask yourself if you’re going to play again.”

Warner’s slashing, pounding running style has taken a severe toll during his six-year NFL career.

“I was like a kamikaze when I first came into the league,” Warner said. “I was crazy. It’s not that I can’t do the same things, but those hits take a toll after a while.”

The toll has included two knee surgeries and three ankle operations to remove bone spurs.

Warner played with the ankle injury last season, and his rushing average fell to 3.9 yards a carry, his worst in three seasons.

There were reports that former team president Mike McCormack tried to trade Warner after last season.

“The explosiveness that characterized Warner’s style is all but gone,” wrote columnist Art Thiel of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “One major knee surgery and an ambulance full of smaller hurts have reduced Warner’s bursts to hesitations. The Seahawks are upset enough to consider a trade.”

Tom Flores, who succeeded McCormack last February, has no plans to trade Warner.

“He’s still not the Curt that he was before,” Flores said. “But he’s certainly a force.”

Like Raider tailback Marcus Allen, who has been supplanted by Bo Jackson, Warner has been replaced by fullback John L. Williams, who was second to Eric Dickerson in total yardage in the AFC last season.

Does it bother Warner that he isn’t the focus of Seattle’s rushing attack?

“I’ll be honest and say that it bothered me at first because I had carried a lot of the load before,” Warner said. “But I look at it this way: John L. can carry the load, too. I don’t get upset about it anymore.”

Still, the Seahawk rushing attack was non-existant in the first two games. Seattle, which never led in its first 10 quarters this season, had to pass to get back into the games.

But Seattle’s rushing attack excelled last week.

In addition to Warner’s 65 yards, Williams rushed for 64 yards and caught five passes for 71 yards and one touchdown.

Curt Warner was the star of the Seahawks in his first four years with the team.

He had his own TV show and more endorsements than any other Seahawk. But fame was fleeting.

“I didn’t like doing the TV show,” Warner said. “I just don’t want to be in front of a camera like that. When you’re getting beat week in and week out and you have to go do a TV show, it’s not a whole lot of fun--and I didn’t enjoy it. I was under fire.”