Pete Carroll reflects on Seattle Seahawks head coaching tenure: ‘It’s been an honor’

“It’s been an honor,” Carroll said. “I’ve loved every minute of it.”

Carroll, 72, was the oldest head coach in the NFL, though you would have never known. Energy is a word that comes to mind when you think of Carroll, something he said Wednesday he still has plenty of.

“I’m freaking jacked,” Carroll said. “I’m fired up. Not tired. I’m not worn down. You guys tried your best, but you didn’t wear me out. It’s the end of the season and I’m supposed to go lay down on a cot somewhere. But I ain’t feeling like that. What’s coming? I don’t know. And I really don’t care right now. But I’m excited about it because there’s a lot to learn, a lot to study.

“There’s great discoveries that are going to come our way. And as my all-time mentor Bud Grant said in not so many words, ‘There’s rivers to wade, there’s waves to catch and there’s mountains to hike.'”

Seahawks conducting first head coaching search in 14 years after announcement Pete Carroll is out

In 14 seasons with the Seahawks, Carroll went 137-89-1, winning a Super Bowl in 2013. Seattle made another Super Bowl appearance the following season and if not for the infamous decision to not hand the ball off to running back Marshawn Lynch at the goal line, the Seahawks could have been back-to-back champions. Carroll steps away as the Seahawks all-time winningest coach and a likely shoo-in for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“What I am most proud of is we took a culture that we developed in those college days and came here,” Carroll said. “If you cared for people deeply, you loved them for who they were, and tried to find the extraordinary uniqueness that made them, them. … At SC we killed it. And we came up here, and overall, we’ve been successful for a long time.”