Pete Carroll’s Goodbye Dinner: Who Planned It, How Did it Happen?

How was the goodbye dinner put together for Pete Carroll the evening after he was released as the Head Coach of the Seattle Seahawks?

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Carroll Shares Secrets About Goodby Dinner

The first I heard about the goodbye dinner that was held in recently released (fired) Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, was from a social media post made by Russell Wilson. The post that you can see below shows a large group of his ex-players and coaches joined together in a photo. Another showed a closeup of Russell and Carroll with the statement "Grateful for you! Celebrating you tonight and all the memories! @PeteCarroll." The dinner was held at Kam and Richards's restaurant called Legion. The 7,500-square-foot restaurant and sports bar located in Bellevue saw a large number of old and current players show up to let Pete Carroll know how much he meant to all of them.

Who Planned Pete's Boodby Dinner?

In a final interview with Brock and Salk on Seattle Sports, Carroll explained the dinner was his idea. He said "yesterday, I just said to Mo Kelly, Mo let's see if we can get the band together you know. So we just put the word out and guys just started showing up out of nowhere you know and uh we had a a great evening. We're having a blast I'm in heaven Justin the middle of all the guys and just you know having fun hugging it up." Pete then describes when he was first really surprised that night saying "In walks Russell and Charlie you know out of nowhere. Russell just hits the scene, they flew up from San Diego or something like that and surprised us which just made it really fun. It was great to see all those guys great to see Russ. He had a blast with it and he knew he was surprising us you know so he was top of the walk and the whole thing which was great."

Pete Carroll's Biggest Memories of the Dinner

Near the end of the interview, Pete starts talking about his favorite parts of the evening. "I'm walking out the door at the end of it and we're getting ready to go and Richard and Russell are standing in the doorway. They both looked at me said, Look! Look what had to happen for you to get us to talking to one another and having fun. It was a great moment and everybody was hugging and everybody was loving and feeling it. Pete describes another great moment involving Doug Baldwin and a bunch of Seahawks defensive legends. Pete goes on saying, "At one point Lawyer Milloy, Kam Chancellor, Quandre Diggs, Jamal...The whole all of the safeties and the DS were all just in one big circle you know. It just tied things together in a really gorgeous way and it was really, really, fun. I really felt like I was in heaven." Then Pete says the firey Baldwin got in the middle and started talking smack like the good old days. "Doug (was) standing there saying -not one of you guys could cover me- he said -I'm open standing right here right now. It was priceless, just priceless." Listen to the entire interview below the Russell Wilson post.