RENTON, Wash. — In the middle of a special-teams practice, Lofa Tatupu started hearing “clinks” coming from the other end of the practice field.
Unsure of the sound, the Seahawks linebacker turned to find a sight that to him, considering his past connections at Southern California with Pete Carroll, wasn’t so strange.
There was Carroll, now his head coach in Seattle, just passing the time by attempting to hit the goalposts with throws from 30 yards away — and getting excited every time he did.
“Me and Kelly Jennings are looking at it like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. Does he ever lose energy?’ ” Tatupu said.
Carroll coached his first NFL game in 11 years last Sunday and hopped along the Seattle sideline like a sugar-filled kid. He spent almost as much time on the field as some of his players, getting pulled and yanked back to the sideline on more than one occasion.
It looked very similar to his demeanor on Saturdays for the previous nine years at USC. But in the NFL, Carroll’s laughter, fist pumps and “Wooooooo’s!” during Seattle’s surprising 31-6 rout of San Francisco were a bit atypical for an NFL coach.
Stoic isn’t a word Carroll seems to know.
“We’re really letting our guys know that we want them to be energetic, to be emotional about the way we bring our game to game day,” Carroll said. “I want them to feed off one another and to do that they have to let it out, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
So far, Carroll hasn’t slowed one bit since arriving in Seattle.
It certainly helped that Seattle rolled through the preseason division favorites in the opener. The Seahawks will try to improve to 2-0 for the first time since 2006 on Sunday at Denver.
Getting professional football players, men in their 20s and 30s, to accept what might have worked in their late teens in college isn’t easy. The excitable attitude and positive vibes Carroll has brought to the Seattle locker room can sometimes border on hokey or contrived and work opposite their intended goal.
The key, say those players who seem to be buying Carroll’s enthusiasm, is to make it genuine. Receiver Mike Williams, who played for Carroll at USC, said there is a clear delineation: The players know when it’s time to have fun and know when it’s time to be serious.
“When it comes to energy and emotion and enthusiasm and all of that, it’s not just Pete. It’s his whole coaching staff. Everybody’s in on it,” Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said. “It’s almost like he’s got people assigned to it.”
