Did Sounders Deserve Seattle Sports Story of the Year Award?

Despite some tough competition, the Seattle Sounders won the Sports Story of the Year, at the 82nd Annual Sports Star of the Year Awards.

On Wednesday, the Sounders put an exclamation mark on their exploits from the 2016 season. As reported by Art Thiel of SportspressNW, the Rave Green were voted sports story of the year, at the 82nd annual Seattle Sports Star of the Year ceremony.

The question is, did the Sounders deserve the award? First off, let’s consider the nominees and why they were included:

• Sounders:– Went from ninth place in the West after 20 games, to qualify for the playoffs. Went on to win first MLS Cup in franchise history, after beating Toronto FC on penalties in the final.
• UW Women’s basketball team: Went 26-11, giving them their most wins since the 1989-90 season. Made it to the Final Four for the first time in the program’s history.
• UW Women’s golf team: Won first NCAA title in the program’s history. Also first NCAA-sanctioned title for the school since 2009. (Softball.)
• UW Men’s football team: Finished with their most wins since 1991. Also won Pac-12 title and made the College Football Playoff.
• Ken Griffey Jr.: Became the first player elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame as a Mariner. Also set a new mark, after receiving a record 99.32 percent of the votes.
• Seahawks: Won third NFC West division title in four years. Qualified for the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season.

In truth, deciding who deserved to win comes down to your criteria. No matter how objective you are — or think you are — you will still ultimately have a perception on what constitutes being the sports story of the year.

For example, are you someone who is all about the bottom line, i.e. being the best at what you do? If this is the case, it comes down to a choice between the Sounders, the UW Women’s golf team or Griffey.

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Griffey in particular hit a home run (pun entirely intended), after being acknowledged as one of the very best at what he did. In addition, there will always be the question of how much more “The Kid” could have achieved, if he hadn’t been compromised by injuries as his career progressed.

However, reaching your pinnacle as an individual is arguably not as impressive as achieving it as a team, when you consider all the moving parts and the difficulties in bringing everything together to create a cohesive working unit. Even professional athletes themselves often say they would swap any individual glory for the chance to be a champion. (Before you say it, I appreciate this depends on the sport in question.)

If you’re looking for fairy tales/unlikely outcomes, then the Sounders and UW Women’s golf team arguably qualify again. The Sounders came from the depths of sacking their head coach during the season, to winning it all as underdogs in Toronto, while the golf team won their title as the fourth seed after beating Stanford, who were the previous year’s champion.

However, you could also make a case for the UW Women’s basketball team having a fairy tale-type year. The program reached new heights, despite being ranked just 24th in the coaches poll.

As a final consideration for the unlikely outcome perspective, the UW men’s football team may well have a claim. While they were expected to be better, no one anticipated such a meteoric rise just one year after a so-so 2015 season.

However, what arguably goes against them is the ease of their non-conference schedule and ultimately coming up short. This doesn’t take away from an extremely impressive season, but the storybook finish wasn’t achieved.

No doubt a lot of Seahawks’ fans will be thinking their team isn’t getting the kudos they deserve, especially with the consistency they’ve show over the last five years. Ironically, it is that consistency that probably went against them, with people now being used to and expecting success.

Another factor which likely also went against Pete Carroll’s team, was the lack of competition in the NFC West and their underwhelming performance against the Falcons. In fact, that divisional playoff loss could arguably be perceived as the epitome of an underachieving season by the Hawks.

Overall, the UW Women’s golf team and Griffey have the strongest cases to dispute the final result. However, it’s entirely understandable why the voters’ selected the Sounders and I would have done the same, albeit after a lot of toing and froing.

As a parting thought — regardless of the outcome — it was a fantastic sporting year for the region in general. The nightmare of 2008 is well and truly in the rear-view mirror, and Seattle can now move forward with the promise of even more success.

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What was your opinion on the Seattle Sports Story or the Year? Do you agree with the Sounders winning, or should it have gone elsewhere? Share your thoughts in the comments section.