1993 Bend High School graduate Ryan Longwell is back in the NFL with the Seattle Seahawks after a one year absence from the League. The former Packer and Vikings kicker signed a contract on Tuesday to join the Hawks as they prepare to travel to face Atlanta on Sunday.
Longwell, who is the all-time leading scorer in Packer history, and a career kicking percentage of 83% (361-434), joins Seattle after Steven Hauschka suffered a calf injury.
Ryan moved to Bend his freshman year where he enrolled at Bend HS where he played both football, and baseball, earning League honors in both.
His coach, Craig Walker, only needed to see one of his practice field goal attempts soar 40-yards through the posts and hit Walker’s truck top in the parking lot to know he had a very special athlete planning to join the Lava Bears.
Coach Walker was very instrumental in getting colleges to look at him by sending tapes out. Longwell landed at Cal where he kicked, and punted for the Bears and became All-Pac 10 his last year in Berkeley as their punter.
That led to a try out with the SF 49-ers who soon waived him, and that’s where it all started as Green Bay snapped him up in 1997.
While a Packer, he became very close friends with Brett Favre, and the two would later be teammates in Minnesota in 2009.
For Longwell, it’s a homecoming of sorts as he grew up outside Seattle in Puyallup where he and his father Paul were big Seahawks, Sonics, and Sounders fans.
As his father told me last night on the phone, “we used to go courtside an hour before Sonics games and snatch up the loose balls for their shoot around, and then we would just hold them out in our hands and wait for the players like Gus Johnson, and Jack Sikma to come over and get them and shake our hands.”
It’s not been an easy week for the former Bear of Bend High and Cal, as he resides in Windemere, Florida, and his wife had to Fedex him some clothes as he didn’t expect to get offered a contract.
(copy and paste the below URL to view interview with Seahawks)
http://youtu.be/fl4jnekMe0s
We have requested an interview with Ryan on our Show next week, and hope we get that opportunity to share his story with central Oregon.
One thing is for sure, too, that if Longwell doesn’t stick with Seattle, he certainly could try the PGA Tour as he is a near scratch golfer. He led the 1st round of the Tahoe Celebrity Open last summer, and finishes regularly in the top of the field.
His father was a pro golfer at one time and later became a top-level management executive where he retired with the Lithia Auto Group.
Paul currently mentors young kickers, and his latest student is also a Bend HS graduate. Hayden Crook is hoping to get a shot at being the Oregon Ducks kicker in the coming seasons as he’s on the Roster as a ‘preferred walk-on.’
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