By CLARE FARNSWORTH SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER October 4, 2002

Replacement Sunday   Replacement Seahawks arrive at team headquarters for the second time on Oct. 15, 1987. The first time the bus arrived, it turned around and went back to the players' motel.

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Fifteen years ago today, the National Football League did the unthinkable.

Faced with a strike by the NFL Players Association and the loss of one weekend of games, the league played on Sunday, Oct. 4, 1987, without its players.

Instead, odd collections of oddball characters took the fields in Seattle, Denver, Detroit, Washington, New Orleans and seven other cities as the NFL unleashed replacement ball on what became known as Replacement Sunday.

It wasn't pretty, but it was an interesting study in human nature. Wannabes suddenly became NFL players, while highly paid NFL players were thrust into the role of striking union workers.

"It was a good time, but it wasn't something I'm necessarily proud of," said Tim Burnham, a former University of Washington player who was the left tackle on the Seahawks replacement team. "Personally, I came close to not doing it out of respect for the Players Association, and what they were trying to achieve.

"But when I look back on it -- like a lot of people who have crossed a picket line, for whatever reason -- most of them are doing it not to be spiteful, but to simply give themselves an opportunity," added Burnham, who now owns a construction supply company in Bellevue.

The players who collected those three weeks of memories -- and their 15 minutes of NFL infamy -- ranged from those who would become noteworthy (Rick Neuheisel, now head coach at the University of Washington), to those who are barely a footnote (Daryl Baines, who was shot and killed a few years later while running away from a crack house in Tacoma).

Replacement ball also spawned a new list of NFL nicknames -- San Francisco Phoney Niners, New Orleans Saint Elsewheres, Los Angeles Shams, Miami Dol-Finks, Seattle Sea-Scabs, Chicago Spare Bears, and so on.

This three-week period has since been romanticized -- and misrepresented -- in the 2000 movie "The Replacements." Keanu Reeves played the quarterback for the Washington Redskins replacement team, who threw touchdown passes by day and wooed the bartending leader of the dance team by night.

"I never saw it," Mike McCormack, who was in charge of compiling the Seahawks replacement team that was coached by Chuck Knox, said this week. "Somebody told me it wasn't very good."

Bill Bidwill, owner of the Arizona Cardinals, was more direct.

"I don't want to see the movie," he said at the time. "I might throw up."

A documentary of the Seahawks replacement team would have been more realistic and entertaining.

"Not even close," Burnham said when asked to compare the way the movie depicted the strike, and the way it really was.

Roll the tape:

The Decision

There had been a strike in 1982. Instead of replacement games, there were no games -- for eight weeks, as the NFL shut down.

No one could believe, or wanted to believe, that the league and owners would actually play games in 1987 with hastily thrown-together groups of former college players -- many plucked from their jobs as cops, bouncers and construction workers.

"I don't think I've ever been in a more challenging situation than this," Knox said on the eve of the Seahawks' first replacement game, against the Miami Dolphins at the Kingdome. "I'm not complaining about it. I'm not making excuses, because this is thrust upon us, and we have to handle it the best we can."

So did the striking players -- especially Kenny Easley, who went from intimidating strong safety to player rep and spokesman for the striking Seahawks.

During the week leading up to the replacement ball opener, while Easley was walking the picket line outside the team's headquarters, an incredulous reporter remarked, "I can't believe they're going to try and pass this team off as the Seahawks."

Easley's retort: "Believe it. They are going to do this. And we're all going to have to live with it."

Assembling the Team

McCormack was a former player -- a Hall of Fame tackle with the Cleveland Browns. Knox was a players' coach, who asked a lot of his players but gave a lot in return.

Their devotion to the striking players put the Seahawks at a disadvantage when it came time to assemble the replacement team.

"We decided to wait," McCormack said. "We weren't sure what was going to happen, whether we were going to field a team or not. We weren't sure what the players were going to do. So we were just kind of on hold."

The holding pattern left McCormack, assistant general manager Chuck Allen and pro personnel assistant Randy Mueller leaving no stone unturned in the scavenger hunt that was piecing together the Seahawks replacement team.

They tracked down one offensive lineman while on a hunting trip in Alaska. They found their fullback, Mike Hagen, at Power International, a Bellevue-based ministry that spread "the word" by having Hagan and others blow up hot-water bottles until they burst, rip phone books in half and break 10 feet of ice with a head butt. They coaxed wide receiver Curtis Pardridge away from an interview for a stockbroker job in Sarasota, Fla.

One by one, they straggled into an Eastside motel the night before they would take the practice field for the first time -- unsure of what was to come, not quite sure what they were doing.

"I knew some of these guys, and they knew who I was," said Burnham, who had met some of the Seahawks players while at the UW, and also while working as a bouncer at Seattle nightspots. "I wasn't just some tight end from Utah who had come in on the pickle truck, and nobody knew me from nothing."

The next morning, the bus carrying the replacement players to team headquarters was met by the striking players at the gate that leads to the players' parking lot -- not to mention a cascade of spit, and an avalanche of verbal abuse.

"As we pulled up, I'm thinking to myself, 'Why are we stopping here? Do they want some kind of confrontation here?' " Burnham said.

In one of the more surreal scenes from this drama that was equal parts nightmare realized and dream come true, McCormack emerged from the building and escorted the replacement players through the gauntlet of striking players.

"It wasn't a difficult decision," McCormack said. "I had mixed feelings, of course, being a former player and an ex-coach. But I didn't want to leave those (replacement) players out there on their own. They didn't know what was going on."

McCormack saved what proved to be his best move for last, signing NFL journeyman quarterback Bruce Mathison a few days before the opener against Miami.

The Games

With Mathison passing for 326 yards -- including a 47-yard pass on third down to Jimmy Teal that set up Rick Parros' 1-yard TD run with 1:30 to play -- the Seahawks rallied to beat Miami 24-20.

A crowd of only 19,448 -- still the fourth largest on Replacement Sunday -- roared its approval for this collection of players who had been assembled during the previous 10 days.

"Any way you want to cut it, this was a great win for this franchise," Knox said. "These kids went out there and battled and scraped, and found a way to win."

Battled and scraped? Guard Ron Scoggins ran off the field in the third quarter, the middle finger on his right hand puffed up like a ballpark frank. He was met by Knox, who explained there was no one to take his place. So Scoggins played the rest of the game with a dislocated finger.

"I can't remember his name, but I remember that big, ol' lineman doing that," McCormack said.

Knox marked the achievement by presenting game balls to all 55 players.

"Some guys get them (game balls) every week. They could care less," Mathison said at the time. "For guys who aren't big-time stars, it's like getting a (Super Bowl) ring. They're priceless."

Things didn't go as well the following week, when the Seahawks lost to their Cincinnati counterparts, 17-10.

Before the Seahawks and other teams could get to the third replacement game, it was the beginning of the end.

On Oct. 14, 89 players crossed the picket line -- including Seahawks wide receiver Steve Largent, center Blair Bush and quarterback Jeff Kemp.

In the Seahawks' game at Detroit four days later, Largent caught 15 passes for 261 yards in a 37-14 rout of the Lions (Largent's 261 receiving yards was a career high).

After the game, then-Lions coach Darryl Rogers was asked the obvious question: Why didn't he use double coverage on Largent?

Rogers' response: "Why embarrass two players, when you can just embarrass one?"

The End

After the game in Detroit, players had their pictures taken in the locker room with teammates who had been strangers three weeks earlier. They were celebrating as if they had played their final game. For most, that was the case.

The next day, back in Kirkland, Knox said good-bye to his replacement team and welcomed back his real team.

The strike was over.

"It was kind of a divided thing," McCormack said. "You had a team on the practice field for those three or four weeks, but you also had a group out there that you were concerned about and worried about."

The 2-1 record compiled by the replacement team helped the Seahawks finish 9-6 and advance to the playoffs. It also gave players like Mathison, Teal and Burnham the chance to stay in the game a little longer. Mathison and Teal stayed even after the strike ended, while Burnham was signed and invited to training camp the next summer.

"I was going through some video tapes, maybe a week ago, and I had one of the offensive series from those three games," Burnham said. "As I watched it, I was going, 'Man, I wasn't that bad a football player.' "

For three weeks, 15 years ago, Burnham was part of the only game in town.

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FOUR WHO WERE THERE

A look at -- and memories from -- four men who were involved in the 1987 NFL players' strike, and the replacement games it prompted:

Mike McCormack THEN: President/general manager of the Seahawks NOW: Retired, with 10 grandchildren MEMORY: "I was involved in the two previous strikes -- 1974, when I was coaching the Eagles, and 1982, my first year in Seattle. Between the three, they kind of run together. I had a lot of mixed emotions in '87. But in '82, I stepped in after Jack (Patera) was fired and coached the final seven games. So that forced me to do something I said I'd never do again -- coach. In '87, I remember those young kids we put out there tried as hard as any veterans. They didn't have all the skills of the regular players, but they battled."

Rick Neuheisel THEN: Quarterback, San Diego Chargers replacement team NOW: Head coach, University of Washington MEMORY: Neuheisel declined to discuss the part he played in the 1987 strike by the NFL Players Association, but his actions in two starts for the Chargers speak for him. He still holds the club record for single-game completion percentage -- .818, in an 18-of-22, 217-yard performance Oct. 11 at Tampa Bay. The head Husky also became the answer to a trivia question: Name the last player to rush for a one-point conversion. Neuheisel ran in a muffed point-after-touchdown attempt in an Oct. 4 game at Cincinnati. The NFL now awards two points for a rushing or passing PAT.

Nesby Glasgow THEN: Strong safety and player rep, Indianapolis Colts NOW: Seahawks director of player programs/alumni MEMORY: "The one thing I remember about 1987, we really had to make some tough choices. I think we did well to hold out as long as we did. I still feel that the league -- actually the NFLPA -- has done an injustice to the guys who went out on strike in '87. Because there's no way the players today would be where they are today without the guys in '87 putting it all out there on the line. We initiated change, and it actually created a much better environment for players. . . . Was it worth it? . . . Yes. Right now, the owners are happy, and for the most part, the players are happy."

Tim Burnham THEN: Left tackle for the Seahawks replacement team NOW: Owner of a construction supplies company MEMORY: "The first day of practice, the centers are snapping the ball for punts and the ball is going everywhere. Chuck Knox turns around and says, 'Can anybody long-snap?' Kent Stephenson (the offensive line coach) turns and looked at me and says, 'Burnham, you snap?' I told him, 'I've never done it in a game, but I know I can do it.' That first game, I was the long snapper."

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