The lawn at the House of Awakened Culture slopes toward the Salish Sea, opening east to a wide horizon and the Seattle skyline beyond. On two unseasonably sunny winter Fridays, that view has framed something more than a football rally.

Blue and green jackets dot the grass. A breeze off the water tugs at flags and hooded sweatshirts and jerseys. Group photos are grabbed, conversations drift, then quiet, as the 12th Man flag is lifted skyward, catching the light as it rises.

“Sea-hawks, SEA-Hawks, SEA-HAWKS!” the gathered tribal community chants as the flag climbs.

Across the water, Seattle waits. Twice this postseason, Suquamish community members have gathered outside the House of Awakened Culture for Blue Friday rallies ahead of Seahawks playoff games. Twice, under clear skies and bright winter sun, the Seahawks delivered wins.

Now, with Seattle headed to the Super Bowl on Feb. 8, the community is preparing for a third rally — one final sendoff before the biggest game of the season.

For many Suquamish fans, this run feels different. Not louder, not flashier — just right.

“It’s our team”

Suquamish Canoe Family skipper and tribal government staffer Ian Lawrence says the connection between Suquamish and the Seahawks goes deeper than simple fandom.

“I feel, as a Suquamish tribal member, that it’s our team because it’s from Seattle,” said Lawrence. “Seattle is named after our ancestral Chief.” Indeed, Seattle is as much a part of the Suquamish Tribe’s ancestral homeland as Kitsap County. Suquamish had villages in what is now Seattle and many tribal members live there today.

Standing on the lawn at the House of Awakened Culture, that idea feels tangible. The rallies aren’t about proximity alone. They are about belonging.

Lawrence said the Seahawks’ long habit of rising above others’ underestimation resonates strongly.

“Over and over, the Seahawks have to keep proving themselves,” he said. “And we’ve had to do the same.”

National commentators have often treated Seattle like an outpost — distant, overlooked, easy to discount. That narrative is familiar here.

“Our tribe has always had to assert who we are and where we belong,” Lawrence said. “So when you see a team that keeps having to prove itself, you identify with that.”

Born into the blue and green

For Lois Sullivan, Seahawks loyalty isn’t something she chose. You might say she was born to be a Seahawks fan.

Born in July 1976 — just a month before the Seahawks started their first season — Sullivan has been a fan literally from the very beginning.

“All my gear says ‘76’ for that reason,” Sullivan said.

She and her husband Gib became season ticket holders in 1999, during the Kingdome years, following the team through its two-year layover at Husky Stadium, and then holding the same seats at the Seahawks’ current home at Lumen Field for more than 20 years.

She remembers the cold, wet seasons when ponchos were mandatory and optimism was optional. She remembers games where tickets were handed out for free when attendance lagged. And she remembers the moments that made it all worth it.

Her most vivid memory remains the 2014 NFC Championship Game, when Richard Sherman tipped a last-second pass to send Seattle to the Super Bowl.

“I’m getting goosebumps just talking about it,” she said. “The building literally shook.”

Like many Seahawks fans, Sullivan also carries the heartbreak — especially the Super Bowl loss the following year to the New England Patriots.

“That one still hurts,” she said. And, of course, this year’s Super Bowl matchup brings that history full circle.

“It feels right,” Sullivan said. “This year feels different.”

The lawn, the light, and the flag

While the Seahawks’ run this year has been a surprise to many, the Suquamish community’s rallying around the team is not.

The Blue Friday rallies have taken place outdoors, on the lawn overlooking the Salish Sea. The setting has mattered.

With the water stretching out below and Seattle across the horizon, the gatherings have felt almost ceremonial as much as celebratory.

Junior Santos, a lifelong Seahawks fan, has raised the 12th Man flag at both postseason rallies.

“When I was asked, it honestly gave me chills,” Santos said. “It felt like an honor.”

As the flag rose on Jan. 23 before the Seahawks’ NFC Conference Championship game against the Rams, the wind came off the water, filling the big banner and snapping blue and white against the sky as the gathered crowd chanted SEA-HAWKS.

Santos said he never expected the moment to feel so meaningful.

“You don’t realize it until you’re up there,” he said. “It’s not just hype. It feels bigger than that.”

Two rallies down, one to go

Two Blue Friday rallies on the HOAC lawn. Two wins. Two bright winter afternoons filled with flags, laughter, and belief.

“It’s not crazy if it works,” Suquamish Warriors officer Chuck Wagner has been heard saying.

Wagner, who helps manage the tribe’s official flag poles, has organized the rallies alongside the tribal government’s Facilities & Maintenance Department.

The third rally, planned for the Friday before the Super Bowl, will bring the community together once more — facing the water, facing Seattle, raising the flag again.

For Santos, the confidence is steady.

“We’re going to win,” he said simply, matter-of-factly.

For Sullivan, the moment is layered with memory.

“This is what being a fan is about,” she said. “You stick with them through everything.”

That sense of belief — quiet, steady, and rooted in experience — shows up again and again among longtime Seahawks fans in Suquamish. Just ask Treaty Rights Protection Admin Manger Kim Kumpf. Shaped by decades of loyalty and countless away game road trips, she says her confidence in this year’s team took hold long before the playoffs ever began.

Believing big even before the playoffs

Kim Kumpf ’s Seahawks story begins with her brother, Phil Contraro, who first started taking her to games back in the Kingdome days. By 2001, they were season ticket holders.

What started as a small cluster of seats eventually grew as friends and family joined in. Over time, Kumpf took on the responsibility of keeping the group together, steadily expanding it until reaching its current size: 10 season tickets, now grouped together in Section 119 at Lumen Field.

“We’re not bandwagon fans, who are only around when we’re winning,” Kumpf said. “It doesn’t matter whether we’re up or down, rain or shine. We’re real fans and we’re there.”

That loyalty has taken her well beyond Seattle. Kumpf has attended the last two Seahawks Super Bowls in person — first in New York, where the Seahawks routed the Denver Broncos in 2014, and again the following year in Arizona, where Seattle suffered its heartbreaking loss to the New England Patriots.

“That one still hurts,” she said.

A feeling from the start

This season, Kumpf felt something different early on.

This season, she attended Seahawks training camp for the first time in July, traveling to the Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton with her daughter. The day was hot and relaxed — a contrast to the high-tension cold-weather games she’s long since grown accustomed to — but the energy stood out immediately.

“Watching them practice, they were clicking,” Kumpf said. “They were having fun. I remember sitting there thinking, this is going to be a good year.”

She and her daughter chatted with longtime training camp regulars and managed to collect 18 player signatures — a number that surprised seasoned attendees.

“The guy next to us, who’d been coming to watch training camp for 30 years, said something felt different this year,” Kumpf said. “Like back in the Legion of Boom days.”

Believing early

By the time the regular season unfolded, and a decidedly rough 1-3 early start, that feeling hadn’t faded.

Kumpf followed the Seahawks on the road again this year, including a trip to Nashville, and continued her annual tradition of traveling to Arizona for the Seahawks-Cardinals game.

Weeks before the postseason began, Kumpf quietly reserved a hotel room near the stadium in San Francisco.

“I booked it before we even made the playoffs. I just had a feeling,” she said. “I didn’t even tell my brother right away. I just figured, if the Seahawks are going, we’re going to be ready.”

A moment worth the wait

Kumpf ’s story mirrors what’s been unfolding on the lawn at the House of Awakened Culture and in living rooms across the Port Madison Reservation — a mix of memory, instinct, and long-earned faith.

As the Seahawks prepare for a Super Bowl rematch years in the making, Suquamish fans are doing what they’ve done all season — showing up together, grounded in place and purpose.

For a franchise and a fan base shaped by patience, the moment carries added weight.

Fifty years since the birth of the team and 11 years after their last NFL championship appearance, the 12th Man will join the Seahawks on the field in voice and spirit for the 60th Super Bowl.

One more Friday. One more rally. One more game