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Pete Carroll Motivates the Seahawks by Throwing Chairs and Cartwheeling Into Whiteboards

Also in Traina Thoughts: Richard Jefferson has perfect explanation for today's NBA; Sunday Ticket finally disappoints; Sports betting history and more.

Jimmy Traina

In this story:

1. Pete Carroll is 72 years old and still going strong on and off the field.

Now in his 14th season as coach of the Seahawks, Carroll has his team in first place in the NFC West and apparently his unorthodox team meetings are partially responsible.

The Athletic recently ran a feature on Carroll and his unusual team meetings. Former and current Seahawks players shared a variety of stories about Carroll on passing X’s and O’s talk and scouting reports during team meetings and basically making them a free-for-all.

There are tales about basketball shooting contests, putting fake snakes in Gatorade coolers, hosting scooter races and much more.

Two of the more amusing stories recounted by players had to do with Carroll’s getting physical.

Current running back DeeJay Dallas shared a tale of Carroll channeling his inner WWE superstar.

"He came in there, shirt unbuttoned, he was already fired up," said Dallas. "He gets to talking, and he threw a chair boom, it hit the wall. The chair is stuck in the wall. I was like, “Goddamn! He fired up.”

Other players recalled the time Carroll took out a whiteboard. Via The Athletic:

Phil Haynes (offensive lineman): We always get really hype before a special teams meeting, but he got really, really excited and jumped through a whiteboard.

DeShawn Shead (former cornerback, current DBs coach): Out of nowhere he got up—boom.

K.J. Wright (former linebacker): He literally does a full-on cartwheel into it.

Riq Woolen (cornerback): But the whiteboard flipped over, and he flipped over with it.

Haynes: I was like, “My God.” We all checked to make sure he was O.K., then we started cheering.

Woolen: Good ol’ Pete got right up, and he was like, “That was nothing.”

Ben Malcolmson (Carroll’s chief of staff): The funny thing is, the whiteboard didn’t really serve any purpose. But it was always in the same spot I think as a prop for whenever Pete decided to go tackle it.

It's good to see an NFL coach have success while not acting like what he does is on par with brain surgery when it comes to difficulty and importance.  

2. If you’re like me and grew up in the ’80s and think today’s NBA is so incredibly soft compared to the ’80s and ’90s, Richard Jefferson had a great explanation for why that is during a recent appearance on Ryen Russillo’s podcast. The full clip is worth your time because Jefferson also had some funny words for Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, but this was the key line: “They got rid of the goons, but they didn’t get rid of the bullies.”

3. It took eight weeks, but we finally had some issues with NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube yesterday.

Despite people blaming me for constantly praising the service and others reacting completely irrationally, I just want to say, calm down.

Every single one of us has had a bad day at work. I’m going to chalk up Sunday’s YouTube issues to a bad day at work and I’m not going to get angry—yet. 

This was YouTube’s one free pass. If there are glitches next week, we’re gonna have a problem.

4. Betting history is being made this week. The Iowa-Northwestern game has an over/under of 29.5 points. It’s the lowest FBS total of all time.

Bet the under.

5. Here’s a Halloween costume 22 years in the making. It was March 24, 2001, when Diamondbacks pitcher Randy Johnson killed a bird with a pitch during an exhibition game. 

6. The latest episode of SI Media With Jimmy Traina features a conversation with legendary radio host Dan Patrick.

Topics discussed include Patrick’s setting a retirement date in four years, why he will call it a career at that time and what he’ll do after giving up his radio show. Among the other items covered with Patrick: why he disliked his last two years at ESPN, the state of radio, the art of interviewing, how he critiques all of his interviews, Pat McAfee backlash and McAfee’s weekly interviews with Aaron Rodgers. Patrick also explains what his new book, The Occasionally Accurate Annals of Football, is all about and talks about turning down a chance to see the Rolling Stones in concert and the time he went to a Britney Spears concert by himself.

Following Patrick, Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York joins me for our weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. This week, we discuss Sal’s complete 180 regarding NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, the Diamondbacks-Rangers World Series, Halloween, my night at a Billy Joel concert and much more.

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.

You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on YouTube.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Flavor Flav sang the national anthem at lat night’s Hawks-Bucks game and, well, you just have to watch for yourself.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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