Seahawks executive played key role in soccer succeeding in Seattle

If Gary Wright had his way, this story wouldn't be about him. But that's the case when more than 50 years working in sports mostly involved pushing others to the front.

His career was spent in the background, making sure others received the attention. He wanted their stories told. Wright was there, but the focus wasn't intended to be on him.

Eventually though, good stories about good people need to be told. And in the world of sports and Seattle and soccer, there's nary a person with a negative thing to say about Wright.

"Not only has nobody ever said a bad word (about Wright), former Sounders goalkeeper Kasey Keller said, "and they will fight you if you say a bad word."

The upcoming FIFA Men's World Cup is the perfect time to tell the story of Wright, because it was this event 28 years ago that changed his view about the sport. It led him to a second career and helped launch the MLS version of the Sounders into a model franchise that redefined what was expected from teams within the league.

As he worked behind the scenes to help raise the profile of the Sounders, with it came an enhanced recognition for Seattle as a soccer hotbed in North America and ultimately helped in FIFA choosing the city as a host site for the biggest event in the sport.

And now the event that made Wright fall in love with the sport is being played in the stadium where the press box is named in his honor. Even at age 81, Wright could have found himself a significant role to be inside the stadium and involved to whatever level he wanted.

But when the tournament starts, Wright is going to be a fan. He wants to watch the games. He doesn't want to be pulled off into glad-handed meetings and distracted by random conversations that do not pertain to what is happening on the field.

Rather than fight traffic and crowds and the surrounding chaos, Wright will be at home, watching the games on TV. His choice.

"I won't go to a game, but I won't miss a game either," Wright said. "I will watch every one of them and enjoy every second … as long as Spain wins."

Universal regard

Ask around the Seattle sports landscape and it's essentially impossible to be universally respected and held to a level of regard where everyone is in agreement that you belong near or at the top.

But that's the place Wright sits for many in the Seattle sporting community.

"He is one of my greatest allies, friends," said Tod Leiweke, former Seahawks executive and current CEO of One Roof Sports and Entertainment.

"I feel like Gary Wright was just always in my life," Sounders owner Adrian Hanauer said.

For those who have never heard Wright's name that's no surprise. For more than 30 years, he was a publicity or public relations director and vice president for the Seahawks, considered one of the best in the industry. He has a place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame after receiving an Award of Excellence in 2022. The press box at Lumen Field was named in his honor in 2008.

The NFL is where Wright made his name and became a respected, revered figure inside the Seahawks headquarters, whether it was in Kirkland or Renton. But his job was giving the spotlight to others.

"He just always had a great rapport with the coaches, with the players, with the front office, with the press at the same time," said Steve Largent, who asked Wright to deliver his Hall of Fame induction speech in 1995. "I couldn't say enough good things about Gary and his relationship to me, and his relationship to the Seahawks and his relationship to the press."

But this story is about soccer and how even the more ardent believers in the power of American football can fall in love with the other football and become one of the important figures in helping the sport achieve success in Seattle.

And it all started because of the World Cup.

Falling for the other football

If you've ever had the chance to chat with Wright about his love of soccer, he's probably shared the origin story about what led this devout football crusader to become an evangelist for futbol.

Wright and his wife, Ann, were visiting friends in Spain in late spring 1998. Both became sick and were stuck in their room and decided to pass the time watching TV. It happened to be as the 1998 World Cup was starting in neighboring France.

Wright remembered the first game he watched was the host country playing South Africa. As someone who ran PR at the Super Bowl more than 20 times, Wright tuned in out of curiosity to see how a big soccer event was presented as compared to the biggest game in the NFL.

"I really had no intention of watching the game, and I said to Ann, I said, ‘Let's watch for a little bit, because this place is electric,' and it came across on the television," Wright said.

But he kept watching and became enthralled with the athleticism, the precision, the grace. Nearly 30 years later, he can remember the players he saw in that first game he watched: Thierry Henry, Lilian Thuram, Laurent Blanc, Didier Deschamps and the one who stood out the most - Zinedine Zidane.

By the end of the vacation, Wright was making a daily trek to the local store to pick up the Spanish papers so he could read the player ratings, despite not knowing Spanish.

"I started to know who the players were and figuring things out," he said.

In one trip, soccer went from being a novelty to a passion now going on three decades.

"We were still in Kirkland at Northwest College, and you'd go to his office and he had a TV mounted in there and it was always soccer," said Sandy Gregory, who like Wright was an original Seahawks employee and remains one of his closest friends. "I mean, all day long, there was soccer on there."

Life in soccer

The announcement of the Sounders coming to MLS in late 2007 and starting in 2009 gave Wright an extension on his career in sports. He was considering retirement from the Seahawks but with the new MLS franchise partnering with the Seahawks on the business side in those early years, Wright had the chance to help mold a new entity in the sport he'd come to love.

"He helped us with that early focus on excellence. Focus on the brand, focus on the fan, focus on culture, all the things that I think live on culturally through the organization today," Hanauer said. "And by the way, when I have a big, gnarly challenge or something that I can't quite figure out, I still call Gary."

As Keller was making his decision to return to Seattle and join the Sounders for their inaugural season he was getting reminded by ex-teammates of the stigmas of MLS at the time and the lack of professionalism.

"None of that happened, and none of it happened because of one person," Keller said. "It made everybody who was involved in those years before we left the Seahawks, I mean, so many things. Guys that were making less than $20,000 a year actually got to feel what professionalism looked like because of Gary."

While he's unassuming in nature and preferred to stay in the background, Wright wielded an unexpected amount of sway and influence, especially as his involvement in soccer grew. Need a connection made? Wright was the hub that could put two together.

Give him a few minutes and he would figure out ways to get in touch with the president of Real Madrid. He developed contacts throughout the Premier League thanks in part to being the liaison for many of the top international teams who have come to Seattle for friendlies over the years, especially in the early years of the Sounders.

"I think it's just the way Gary is around people that people respect him so much," Gregory said.

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