I watched the super bowl. My family and I were so excited to cheer for the Seahawks. We had lots of good reasons. We sort of adopted the Seahawks after many years of disappointment with the Minnesota Vikings. Yeah, call us bandwagon if you want but we started cheering for them in December of last year when my son said, “Dad, we need to find a new team.” So, I ordered him a Russell Wilson jersey and off we went. Little did we know that they would run through the playoffs and embarrass the Denver Broncos to win the city’s first super bowl.

So, we were ready this fall. With all the drama surrounding Adrian Peterson, we were solidly Seahawks fans again. They really played well towards the end of the season and their division fell apart and before we knew it, they were in the NFC Championship against the Packers. Being Minnesotans, we never like to see the Packers win, so that game was painful to watch. It looked like Green Bay was going to head back to the Super Bowl but the Packers found a way to lose and the Seahawks were winners again.

The whole world knows about “deflate gate” and when I asked my daughter, a non-football fan, who she was rooting for in the Super Bowl, she said “I don’t cheer for cheaters.” So, true. We were really hoping that good karma was on our side against New England. At the end of the game, I felt a little ill. Yes, I ate too much but I also couldn’t believe we lost. Then I searched my memory bank for some good sports quotes and came up with “you win some and you lose some” and “players win games; coaches lose them.” What really struck me today when I read about the aftermath of the Super Bowl and all the analysis of Seattle’s last play call, it was a study in leadership. When asked about the last play call, Pete Carroll, Seattle’s head coach, quickly said, “it was my fault.” No second guessing, no throwing anyone under the bus. He just took responsibility. As they day went on, the exhausting analysis continued and I heard the answer to the question of responsibility posed to Seattle’s offensive coordinator, Darrell Bevell. He was actually the one most responsible for that play call and instead of following Pete Carroll’s lead, he blamed his wide receiver for not getting to the ball fast enough.

So, there you have it. Leadership 101 – Don’t cheer for cheaters and take responsibility for mistakes.