The Seahawks celebrate their Super Bowl win with a trophy presentation before a parade through downtown on Feb. 11. (Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times)
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By
Bob Condotta
Seattle Times staff reporter
INDIANAPOLIS — Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald confirmed Wednesday the team has yet to receive an invitation to visit the White House, something that is usually accorded to Super Bowl champion teams.
Macdonald said he expects that an invite will eventually arrive.
Will the Seahawks go if asked?
“We haven’t got an invite yet,” Macdonald said during a session with reporters who cover the Seahawks here at the NFL combine. “And then we’ll address it after that, after we get the invite.”
A league source here indicated that the initial inclination of the organization would be to accept the invite, following the tradition of NFL teams through the years who have made White House visits, including the Philadelphia Eagles last year.
The only recent team not to visit the White House was the Eagles in 2018 after their invite was rescinded by President Donald Trump when the team would not promise that all players would stand for the anthem with their “hand on heart.”
If the Seahawks accepted the invite it would be left to individual players and others to not make the trip if they didn’t want to, as did a handful of Eagles last year and members of other sports teams that also visit the White House after winning championships.
But Macdonald stressed that any formal decision will come only after an invitation is made.
“We’ll wait for the invite and then work through it from that point,” Macdonald said.
Asked if a decision on whether to go would be a player vote or from the top down, Macdonald said: “I think it’s just everybody involved, just like we do everything else.”
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Asked if he would like full attendance, Macdonald said: “I don’t know. That’s like speculation. I’m not going to speculate.”
While an invite hasn’t come yet, Macdonald said “I expect to get an invitation, and then we’ll go from there.”
Macdonald’s statement refutes what had been multiple social media reports that the Seahawks had already been invited and had turned down the invite.
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A few weeks after the game is typically when invites arrive.
The Eagles announced last year on March 11 they had officially accepted an invitation to the White House and made the visit on April 28.
After winning their first Super Bowl in 2014, the Seahawks visited the White House on May 21.
The Eagles’ visit to the White House last year included a stop at Arlington National Cemetery, which is a model the Seahawks might follow if they were to get an invite and make the trip.
After the Seahawks won the Super Bowl on Feb. 2, 2014, then-President Barack Obama invited the team to the White House during a phone call two days after the game with coach Pete Carroll and shortly after released a statement confirming the invite.
“The President commended Coach Carroll and his team for a great game, and expressed how exciting it has been to watch the team play all season,” said a White House statement. “The President told Coach Carroll that he looks forward to congratulating him and the team at the White House in the coming months.”
Bob Condotta: bcondotta@seattletimes.com. Bob Condotta is a sports reporter at The Seattle Times who primarily covers the Seahawks but also dabbles in other sports. He has worked at The Times since 2002, reporting on University of Washington Husky football and basketball for his first 10 years at the paper before switching to the Seahawks in 2013.
