The on-field success, the winning culture in the building, the decade-plus of shrewd roster moves, and the direction the team is heading in under Macdonald all helped Schneider get to a point where Seahawks Chair Jody Allen wanted to make sure he sticks around into next decade.
“Just a ton of gratitude,” Schneider said. “Obviously very thankful. A ton of gratitude to Jody, (vice chair) Bert (Kolde), (president) Chuck (Arnold). I appreciated Bert’s time and effort in this whole thing. Obviously, everybody on the third floor, everybody in our building, second floor, everybody we love in the cafeteria, all the scouts, sports science, football operations, all the current players and all the great former players that have been through here that we totally appreciated. And just to be able to move forward with coach Mike here and go win some championships.”
A big part of Schneider’s success over the past 15 years has of course been his ability to evaluate players—he got his start as a scout, after all—but another key has been his ability to build and maintain relationships inside the Virginia Mason Athletic Center and around the league.
Schneider noted one of his favorite parts of the job is “Just kind of walking through the building crud, that’s kind of my leadership style a little bit, just having fun and messing with people,” and while he enjoys joking with co-workers, he isn’t joking that those relationships are one of his favorite parts of the job.
“Treating people the way you want to be treated, egoless, putting your egos aside,” Schneider said. “When Pete and I got together, we made a conscious effort—we had both been fired before—so it was like, hey, neither one of us who cares who’s going to get the credit, but we want to go win championships together and create an atmosphere that players want to play here and coaches want to coach here, and that everybody was just extremely fired up to come to work every day.”
The Seahawks organization has very much been that since Schneider took over, and thanks to Wednesday’s extension, it will continue to be into the next decade.
When I moved out here, Traci and I, that’s one of things we were especially thankful for was to be able to be in this community and to be able to give back in the autism world and do as much as we can. But yeah, I’m a big NFL history buff, and to be able to be in one place for as long we have been in this role… And the things that go on behind closed doors—it’s fun to talk about the players and acquisitions and all that, but it’s about (chief communications officer) Dave (Pearson) and Strick (head athletic trainer David Striklin) and Sammy (vice president of health and player performance Sam Ramsden) and Mo (vice president of player affairs Maurice Kelly) and EK (director of equipment Erik Kennedy) and everybody in this building. It’s like this awesome, foundational—quite honestly, it’s one of the reasons I wanted to come back here when Tim Ruskell got the job (in 2005), because I had worked here before with Coach (Mike) Holmgren and Ted (Thompson), and I just loved everybody here and knew what a gem it was.”