000

after that game and lost, Aaron Rodgers

quipped, “I think God was a Packers fan

tonight,” a knowing smirk on his face.

But Wilson wants you to know that

everything is love. That’s what he is about.

“The only responsibility on my shoulders

is to try to love unconditionally and try to

share that and to try to make the world

a better place,” he says. “By serving and

giving back to others. I think that’s really

the opportunity that God is giving me.”

BEFORE THE GAME OF ROOFTOP CATCH,

Wilson and I meet for breakfast at the

Hotel Theodore in downtown Seattle. It’s

already midmorning for Wilson because

he’s an early riser who gets up at 5 or 5:30,

works out for two hours, has family time,

then works on one of his side businesses.

The breakfast itself is something of a

charade. Wilson’s meal has already been

specially prepared beforehand. A plastic

container with coconut yogurt is placed

in front of him, to accommodate his low-

carb, high-protein, dairy-free, gluten-free

diet. Nonetheless, a severely starstruck

waitress appears and, seemingly awed

to be in Wilson’s presence, proceeds to

describe the menu in excruciating detail,

down to the mascarpone whipped into the

eggs. She goes on for almost four minutes,

and it becomes painful to watch.

“You’re selling me hard here, I like that,”

says Wilson good-naturedly, appeasing

the waitress by ordering a side of bacon.

After she leaves, we wait a beat.

He smiles.

“Wow,” I say. “Is it like this

everywhere you go?”

“Yes,” he says, and chuckles.

In Seatt le, Wilson is t he peo-

ple’s king. Ever since coming

home with the Super Bowl ring

in 2014, he can do no wrong

in the Emerald City. And he

adores the city in return. “I

love the vision of Seattle,” he

says. “The vision of business,

success, newness. Of new start-

ups and new ideas. I love the

actual literal view of Seattle.

Like the vision when you f ly

in, how beautiful it is.”

He grew up far from here,

in Richmond, Virginia. Sports run in the

family: He has an older brother who played

Well, not to me, exactly. I am standing just

behind Mark Baysinger, Wilson’s barber,

who is the one catching the balls Wilson is

t hrow ing for a photo shoot, so it’s an optical

illusion—albeit a thrilling one—that I’m the

recipient of a football thrown by one of the

greatest quarterbacks in the world.

We’re on the roof of a building in the

Pioneer Square neighborhood, across

the street from the Seahawks’ stadium,

CenturyLink Field, which looms in the

background, and the balls travel with

all the precision you’d expect of a Super

Bowl–winning QB—perfect spirals that are

neither too hard nor too high nor too fast.

I watch them f ly by in a trance—it looks so

effortless, I almost want to try it myself,

catch one and throw it back, and then I

remember who and what I’m looking at.

It’s an NFL superstar in the f lesh, the

f irst- or second-highest-paid player in

the league (depending on how you parse

his new four-year, $140 million contract

extension), the guy who throws the most

perfect deep ball in the game (do not @ me,

Aaron Rodgers fans), the guy who, after

throwing four interceptions during the

NFC Championship game in 2015 against

the Green Bay Packers, sealed the improb-

able comeback with one of those f lawless

deep balls in overtime. That guy.

Russell Wilson is everything you’ve

heard about him—always on message and

extremely polite, truly deeply religious, a

bit corny (endearing or annoying, depend-

ing on your vantage point), especially on

social media.

On the f ield, he is Houdini,

able to run and dodge defenders

w it h an ease t hat must irritate his

opponents as much as it thrills his

fans. But he is also known to be

one of the most accurate passers

in the game, with a devastating

arm, able to place the ball with

surgical precision—usually done

while running for his life.

But Wilson wants to be more

than an athlete. Among his side

hustles: a clothing line, Good

Man Brand, where $3 from every

purchase goes to his charit y, t he

Why Not You Foundation; Tally,

a sports-prediction app; West-

2East Empire, a brand-management and

production company; and Why Not You

Instagram ready: Russell Wilson poses

with his wife, Ciara.

Productions, his foray into f ilm and TV

with Ciara, his beautiful pop star wife.

His choirboy persona goes against the

grain in today’s NFL, which often makes

headlines for all the wrong reasons (see:

Ray Rice, Kareem Hunt, and Adrian

Peterson). In a lot of ways, he’s a throwback

to a simpler era, when sports heroes were

DiMaggio, Mantle, or more recently, Ken

Griffey Jr., whom Russell once f ielded a

ball from as a kid at spring training.

In an interview, Wilson is talkative

but never veers off script. Today he’s

wearing a blue plaid button-down and

purple Paul Smith bomber jacket. He has

let his curly hair grow out, and it forms a

perfect halo of ringlets around his head.

He has a charming smile and dimples, but

in conversation, he is surprisingly serious

and only occasionally f lashes them. He

also is short for a quarterback—just 5'11".

He’s most animated when talk ing about

kids and family and the work he does with

cancer patients at Seattle’s Children’s

Hospital. He shoots down questions or

evades them gracefully when you bring

up politics or NFL controversies. He’s not

afraid to cry and thank God and Jesus—a

quality sneered at by many of his peers.

(Former teammates Richard Sherman and

Doug Baldwin are reportedly not fans of

his off-the-f ield persona.) After winning

the 2015 NFC Championship game, Wil-

son wept openly on national television, a

grown man sobbing that “God is so good.”

The f irst time Seattle played Green Bay

x

RUSSELL WILSON IS THROWING FOOTBALLS TO ME.

@C

IA

RA