Howard Schultz

Coffee Magnate / Sonics Sellout

Transgression: Sold Seattle’s first sports franchise to a group of out-of-town owners hell-bent on moving the Sonics to Oklahoma.

Timeline: Headed up the group that purchased the Sonics in 2001 for $200 million, sold them in 2006 for $350 million, and whined for much of the five years in between.

Howard Schultz was a bad owner.

This was true even before he sold our city’s first pro sports franchise into a hostage situation. He complained about how much money he was losing, once staged a very public fight with his team’s best player in Gary Payton, and generally behaved like a child when he was disappointed by his team’s fortunes.

We’ve had bad owners in this city before, whether it was a tightwad like George Argyros with the Mariners or a carpetbagger like Ken Behring with the Seahawks (more on him in a second).

What makes Schultz uniquely loathed by every red-blooded Seattle sports fan is the gap between what Howard said as the Sonics owner and what he ultimately did as the Sonics owner. He told us that a sports franchise was a civic trust and then he went and sold our oldest one to a group who’d been clamoring to get a team in Oklahoma City. He told a newspaper columnist he specifically didn’t respect Vin Baker’s work ethic, and yet when it came time for him to do the politicking necessary to arrange the new arena he wanted, he cut his losses and ran.

To top it all off , it took more than 10 years before he apologized for it, and even then it was kind of self-serving. He did it in 2019 in his book, From the Ground Up, which was published as Schultz weighed a run for president.

“Almost everyone blamed me,” he wrote, “and after some initial denial, I realized they were right to do so. I had squandered the very public trust that I had bought into.”

Too late, bud. You’re going to have to wear this one forever — at least until there’s a pro basketball team back in town.

 

Alex Rodriguez

Former Mariner / All-Time Phony

Transgression: Left the Seattle Mariners to sign the largest contract in baseball history with the Texas Rangers.

Timeline: Drafted by Seattle with the No.1 overall pick in 1993, Rodriguez made his Major League debut in 1995 and played six full seasons with Seattle before going to Texas in December 2000, where he signed a 10-year, $252 million contract as a free agent.

Seattle is not a particularly tough sports town, and that is especially true when it comes to the Mariners. We never stopped loving Ken Griffey Jr., even after he requested a trade.

When he decided what he wanted most was the cash, everything he’d said about loving Seattle felt very phony.

What we won’t abide, though, is people who sell us out, and while no one would say Alex Rodriguez was wrong to sign the ungodly contract Texas was offering him, we don’t have to like it nor him for it, either. When he decided what he wanted most was the cash, everything he’d said about loving Seattle felt very phony.

When Rodriguez came back for the first time, it was quite simply the most hostile reaction any athlete has ever received in this city. Not just the boos, but the fake money attached to a fishing pole that was being held by a fan behind the third-base dugout.

Rodriguez played only three seasons in Texas before the Rangers decided they’d paid him too much money to be able to put a competent team around him. He went to the Yankees, with whom he won a World Series in 2009, but the second half of his career was most notable for the scrutiny he faced regarding his use of performance-enhancing drugs.

The years may have tempered the degree of Seattle’s disdain for Rodriguez, but no one here really likes him. He remains among the Mariners’ all-time leaders in hits (10th), home runs (fifth), batting average (third), and slugging percentage (first). In terms of popularity, though, he’s ensconced at No. 312, which puts him above Chone Figgins but below anyone who was even marginally liked during their time in town.

Bill Leavy

NFL Referee / Phantom Flagger

Transgression: Oversaw the official hosing of the Seahawks in the franchise’s first Super Bowl appearance.

Timeline: On Feb. 5, 2006, Bill Leavy was the referee in charge of the crew officiating Super Bowl XL in Detroit between the Seattle Seahawks and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

It’s considered a positive sign if fans don’t know the official’s name. It means they haven’t done anything so egregious as to merit your attention. The fact that no one in this city will ever forget Bill Leavy’s name is proof of just how large the officiating loomed in Seattle’s Super Bowl loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“I impacted the game and as an official you never want to do that. It left me with a lot of sleepless nights, and I think about it constantly.”

It started with the offensive pass interference penalty that nullified Darrell Jackson’s touchdown catch in the first half. It proceeded to a dubious holding penalty that negated a 34 yard punt return in the second quarter.

The biggest issues, though, were a pair of fourth-quarter penalties. Trailing 14-10, Matt Hasselbeck completed an 18-yard throw that would have set up first-and-goal at the Pittsburgh 1 only to have it negated by a holding penalty against Sean Locklear. “Oooh, I didn’t see holding,” said John Madden after viewing the replay.

Three plays after that penalty, Hasselbeck was intercepted, and was then puzzlingly flagged for an illegal block on the play in which he actually made the tackle.

Five years later, Leavy came to Seattle in August to consult with the team on rules changes and he talked, unprompted, about his performance to a group of reporters.

“It was a tough thing for me,” he said in 2010. “I kicked two calls in the fourth quarter, and I impacted the game and as an official you never want to do that. It left me with a lot of sleepless nights, and I think about it constantly.” Leavy, who was a firefighter and policeman in San Jose, California, retired from officiating in 2015, having refereed two Super Bowls. He died in March 2023 at age 76.

Ken Behring

Real-Estate Developer / California Carpetbagger

Transgression: Attempted to move the Seahawks to Southern California in February 1996.

Timeline: Ken Behring bought the Seahawks in 1988 for a reported $80 million. Agreed to sell the team to Paul Allen in 1996 after his failed attempt at relocation.

There were many ways in which Ken Behring was incredibly admirable. A self-made billionaire, he went from selling cars in Wisconsin to developing high-end real estate in California. When he died in 2019 at the age of 91, he was remembered as a philanthropist who donated $100 million to the Smithsonian Institution and started his own nonprofit foundation which had provided more than 1 million wheelchairs to people in need across more than 100 countries.

But in Seattle, he will be remembered as the owner who wanted Dan McGwire over Brett Favre, the one who was in charge during the most disappointing stretch of franchise history, and the guy who did everything he could to move the Seahawks to Southern California.

Well, technically, he did relocate the team for a few months back in 1996. The moving vans showed up and carted all the equipment down to Anaheim. The team even held a few workouts down there, though Cortez Kennedy declined to participate, pointing out that the clause in his contract regarding off season workouts stipulated those sessions would be held at the franchise’s headquarters.

King County filed a suit against the franchise, pointing out the pesky fact that there were 10 years left on the team’s lease with the Kingdome. U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton declared, “Ken Behring does not deserve Seattle,” and NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue told Behring if he didn’t bring the team back to Seattle, he would be fined $500,000 per day for conduct detrimental to the league.

This prompted Behring to make the best decision in his eight-year tenure as the owner: He sold. Paul Allen agreed to an option to purchase the team in April 1996 — less than three months after Behring announced the Seahawks were leaving Seattle.

The Seahawks made the playoff s just once in the eight seasons Behring owned the franchise, and that was 1988, his first year. In 1991, Chuck Knox wanted to draft Brett Favre with the team’s first-round pick, but the Seahawks chose McGwire. Knox and Behring agreed to part ways after the season. Seattle went 2-14 the following season, which remains the worst in franchise history.

Tyrone Willingham

Curt Coach / Husky Horror Show

Transgression: Coached Washington to a 0-12 record in 2008, giving Washington State fans an instant comeback that has no expiration date.

Timeline: Willingham was hired by Washington in 2005 and didn’t manage a winning record in any of his four seasons as coach.

In the wake of the last lopsided loss in the worst season in Washington history, the reporters tasked with chronicling the funeral march that was the Huskies’ 2008 season made their way down from the press box at Cal’s Memorial Stadium.

Not only did he oversee a staggering run of lopsided defeats, but he seemed annoyed when anyone dared ask for an explanation as to why this was happening.

As they neared the place where they were to interview Tyrone Willingham, they saw Washington’s coach turn to leave. He told a member of the school’s sports-information department that he had been prepared to answer questions, but no one was present. He had to be persuaded to go back and talk to the reporters, which is a pitch-perfect conclusion for his utterly abominable tenure as Washington coach. Not only did he oversee a staggering run of lopsided defeats, but he seemed annoyed when anyone dared ask for an explanation as to why this was happening.

Even now, it’s hard to explain why it went so poorly. Willingham knew how to coach. He thrived during seven years at Stanford, earning the school’s first conference title in 29 years in 1999. He went to Notre Dame in 2002, where he became the first coach in the school’s history to win his first eight games. When he was fired by the Irish after three seasons, there was a feeling he was getting a raw deal. That he wound up at Washington was considered a coup.

In his four seasons as Washington coach, the Huskies never won more than five games, going 11- 37. If you’re looking for an answer as to why that happened, don’t wait around for Willingham to answer that one.