Since many of you have shown interest in facets of the Seahawks aside from stats and contracts, etc., I thought you might be interested in what some of these players do in the community. Many are extremely committed, including fullback Mack Strong. I’ve done a number of columns through the years on the commendable off-field efforts of Mack and his wife Zoe. I got this press release that I’ll pass along as it came to me – in case you’re interested. Of course, this is only one of the many events these guys are involved in, but it is a good example of how many are using their position and visibility for far more than just personal gain.

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Seahawk Mack Strong to host TEAM-WORKS Sports and Leadership Camp on the Tulalip Reservation for Native American Youth July 11-13

Marysville, Washington – Tribal youth from around the Northwest will be learning from professional and collegiate athletes at the Mack Strong TEAM-WORKS Sports and Leadership Camp July 11-13 at the Tulalip Boys and Girls Club. The camp is presented by HOPE - worldwide Washington, Tulalip Casino, the Tulalip Education Department, and the Tulalip Boys and Girls Club. Professional athletes attending from the Seattle Seahawks will be All-Pro Mack Strong, DJ Hackett, Floyd Womack, Jordan Babineaux Seneca Wallace. Additional professional and collegiate athletes will also attend such as Ian Scott from the Philadelphia Eagles and others.

Students, coaches, players and parents alike are expressing excitement about the inter-tribal participation of the Tulalip, Muckleshoot, Lummi and Nez Perce attendees. In the three-day program, athlete mentors will focus on the TEAM-WORKS formula of Strong Minds, Strong Bodies and Strong Character workshops on healthy lifestyles and sports. Professional athletes will be instructing youth on the fundamentals of sports in four sports clinics; football, basketball, baseball and soccer. Along with providing physical skills training, the athletes will share stories of personal hardship, courage, and victory. In addition, Native leaders who take part encourage the high school students to take pride in their identity and will present indigenous games and activities. Camp registration for students from the Tulalip Tribes (7th through 12th grade) is still open until July 10th. You can register at the Tulalip Boys and Girls Club.

HOPE worldwide is an international charity that changes lives by empowering the compassion and commitment of dedicated staff and volunteers to deliver sustainable, high-impact, community-based services. The Washington Branch of HOPE worldwide is dedicated to providing these services to Native American youth and at-risk individuals in the Puget Sound region through the TEAM-WORKS Academy, Annual Maternity and Infant Clothing drive/Baby Shower Event benefiting the Seattle Indian Center, Annual Holiday Toy Drive for orphans and at-risk families, Annual Blood Drive for the Puget Sound Blood Center, and Mack Strong’s TEAM-WORKS Sports and Leadership Camp.
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The Seahawks announced that cornerback Rich Gardner was released to accommodate the recent signing of sixth-round wide receiver Courtney Taylor.

Gardner was signed as a free agent in Week 17 last year when injuries decimated the Seahawk secondary.

During a hot morning spent jockeying a pry-bar and reciprocating saw -- determined to reduce a rotting back deck into a pile of kindling -- I tried thinking of a good weblog topic today. One of the things I love to ask players who arrive at the Seahawks as free agents or draft picks is: What kind of jobs have you worked? I always thought it helped cast some light on the forces that shaped the player into who he is. Some answers have been pretty interesting.

Bill Hitchcock, an old lineman from the early ‘90s had been bouncer in a biker bar in Montreal, where he put his martial-arts skills to good use. Lamar King used to work as a cook at Taco Bell, and a crate loader at UPS. More recently, center Chris Spencer told of laboring on his grandfather’s farm in Mississippi as early as age 6, and of driving the tractor at age 7. I asked him if that kind of work made the challenges of pro football seem easier. “Playing football is fun; pouring asphalt in 100 degrees, that’s work,” he said.

One of the real interesting stories of hard labor came from Chuck Darby. I talked to him for a column soon after he arrived in the summer of ’05 because it seemed to me that he had introduced a higher intensity to the defense with his practice habits. Turns out, he used to help his father log cypress trees in the swamps of South Carolina. Heat, humidity, bugs, snakes … that job had to be a living nightmare. Darby had no complaints, though.

So, if you’re like I am today, sweating out some mild yard project, take solace in the fact that you could be swamp logging.

Here’s a copy of that column on Darby, who, indeed, turned out to be a nice acquisition by Tim Ruskell.

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ROLLING BALL OF ENERGY
Darby is a new force on defense

Aug 3, 2005

CHENEY - As the defensive free agents trickled into Seattle in the offseason, geared toward upgrading the Seahawks' most obvious weakness, headlines heralded the arrival of Jamie Sharper, Bryce Fisher, Andre Dyson and a few others.

The signing of Chartric Darby caused little comment other than, perhaps, "What's a Chartric?"

But as training camp progresses, it's Darby who is making the most visible early impact.

"One of the key guys who can help our football team right away is Chartric Darby," coordinator Ray Rhodes said. "Chartric has been here playing with a lot of energy and effort. The thing that is very noticeable about him is that he has one speed. I like players who play with one speed . . . all out."

The pace of practice for the defensive line has quickened since the addition of the kinetic Darby. And if attitude becomes a concern, well, Darby appears willing to take care of that, too.

"He is a leader," Rhodes said. "He is not going to do a lot of talking, but (lead) by example. If somebody is talking (negatively) around him, he is going to make them shut up."

Darby, late of the Tampa Bay Bucanneers, doesn't fit the blueprint for defensive tackles. He's 295 pounds, although a shade under 6 feet tall.

But he's a rolling ball of energy.

"I know I'm not the tallest player in the world, but none of those pro scouts could ever measure my heart," Darby said Tuesday. "My heart is seven feet wide and seven feet tall. And when I play in the middle, being short gives me leverage. Because I'm so low to the ground, it's tough for those big offensive linemen to get down there and block me. Those bigger defensive linemen are bigger targets for getting blocked."

Darby should be somewhat accustomed to being overlooked.

He's from the curiously named hamlet of North, South Carolina (population: 813). "We've got a caution light and some cow pastures."

His father is a logger, and Chartric (aka Chuck) spent time out in the swamps with him, engaged in the difficult enterprise of felling cypress.

They have a name for people who do this: Snake bait.

"I went out there and worked with him, cutting cypress and oak and pine," he said. "It's tough work and he's a tough guy, a hard- nosed guy. He worked hard to make ends meet; he's my biggest role model."

Wildlife? "Oh yeah, we ran into some snakes down in the swamps, but that's typical."

Darby played at South Carolina State and went undrafted by the NFL, but when he got a chance to compete in NFL Europe for the Barcelona Dragons, a Tampa Bay personnel evaluator - Tim Ruskell - liked his effort.

"He doesn't fit most schemes, being 5-11-something, so nobody was really looking at him," said Ruskell, now president of the Seahawks.

"But he was effective. We didn't care about the size, we cared about getting off the ball, the energy, the way he played the game. He always managed to do something."

Darby improved steadily, Ruskell said, and he was valuable as a situational fill-in. He started for the Bucs in Super Bowl XXXVII, next to the redoubtable Warren Sapp.

"He's a great football player and was a great person to me," Darby said of Sapp. "He was a player with a motor; he was very intelligent and he gave great effort. He's different; he's what you'd call special."

When Ruskell joined the Hawks last winter, and started evaluating free agents, Darby seemed a natural addition.

"He's a quiet leader, not a rah-rah guy who's getting up on the chair; he leads by example," Ruskell said. "When he was available, we thought, 'Oh, that would be a nice element to bring into the mix.' You have to give all the credit to Chuck because he's got a big heart and plays hard all the time and loves the game."

That's fairly obvious. Darby sprints everywhere on the field, after drills, between drills, as if he can't wait to get to the next task.

And, early on, he's playing so well that he's seeing considerable action with the first team, next to vastly improved second-year tackle Marcus Tubbs . . . an impressionable player with whom he's sharing his experience.

"Tubbs is going to be a truly great football player," Darby said. "He has a ton of talent waiting to explode. He works on his tools every day. I think that years from now, you're going to be reading about Marcus Tubbs . . . one of the league's great defensive linemen."

Darby willingly shares more than his football lessons, including what appears to be an irrepressibly upbeat philosophy on life.

"I believe that if you work hard every day, then good things are going to happen," Darby said. "The sun will shine on you. I believe that's a true thing. It just can't rain every day."

Of course, Darby hasn't yet spent a winter in Seattle.

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