Pete Carroll, a little more than three months after his final game as head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, found himself in the middle of football practice.
The 72-year-old Super Bowl XLVIII champion recently stopped by a University of Washington football practice. Carroll was not just an observer; he led the team through one of his trademark drills before giving a pep talk to the Huskies players.
“It’s always been about competition,” Carroll told the players. “It’s always been about competition. It doesn’t matter who you’re playing, it doesn’t matter where you’re playing, what color uniform they’re wearing, when the day you’re playing, if you’re the one competing.”
Carroll’s presence at a Huskies practice shouldn’t come as a surprise. Washington coach Jeff Fisch served as Carroll’s quarterbacks coach in Seattle in 2010. Carroll’s son, Brennan, is Washington’s offensive coordinator.
The youthful energy Carroll showed while coaching the Huskies shouldn’t be a surprise either. Carroll is known for his boundless energy, an energy that helped him achieve considerable success with the Seahawks and at USC, where he won two national titles.
Carroll (who currently serves as an advisor to the Seahawks) dismissed the notion that he needed a break from coaching work during his final press conference as Seahawks coach. He added that he is keeping his options open regarding the future.
“What’s coming, I don’t know,” Carroll said at the time, via ESPN. “I have no idea and I really don’t care right now, but I’m excited because there’s a lot to learn, there’s a lot to study, there are great discoveries that are going to happen to us .
“And as my all-time mentor Bud Grant said, not in layman’s terms: ‘There are rivers to wade, there are waves to catch, and there are mountains to climb.’ It’s not exactly like he said, but I get it. There’s some cool stuff we’re going to do here and I’m looking forward to it all.”