‘It’s a lot of fun, bro’: Mike Macdonald wowed by 1st day leading Seahawks training camp

When he first arrived this spring, Mike Macdonald was in a whirlwind.

He was hiring more than 20 new assistant coaches. He was learning a new NFL franchise. He was figuring out how to be a first-time head coach at the age of 36. He was preparing for his first draft as a head man. He was buying a home in the Seattle suburbs and moving a family across the country, from Maryland.

Through all that, the league’s youngest coach understandably came off as somewhat intense. His new players described him as “blunt” and “direct.”

He sounded preoccupied. After all, Macdonald was busy. He had a franchise to turn around, following its third season missing the playoffs last January.

Wednesday, on the first day of training camp and the Mike McDonald Era in Seattle, the Seahawks’ new coach looked and sounded refreshed. Recharged. And tanned.

He was positively glowing.

Macdonald emerged from the team facility through the main doors to the practice fields just before 1 p.m. His smile was as bright as the 78-degree sun on an idyllic, blue-sky day along Lake Washington. When they saw the coach, fans behind the field’s end zone yelled his name.

The former Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator Seahawks general manager John Schneider hired in January to replace fired, 72-year-old Pete Carroll didn’t walk so much as he skipped over to those fans. Macdonald gleefully signed autographs for them. He stooped to sign with his left hand the Seahawks 12 flag of one fan draped across his left thigh.

He didn’t stop smiling.

Then he walked onto the field for his first preseason practice as a head coach. His expression was that of the luckiest man alive.

“It’s a lot of fun, bro,” Macdonald said.

“It’s like Christmas, man.”

His energy permeated the entire, 90-minute practice. At one point as the offense and his defense changed edges between scrimmage periods, Macdonald bellowed to his players: “Let’s GO guys! You shouldn’t be walkin’! Let’s GO!”

After the spirited, no-pads practice, Macdonald called his players into a semicircle at the center of the field. He noted that during spring organized team activities and minicamp practices, the Seahawks often got off the field early. Wednesday, they were right on time, maybe a minute or two late. Macdonald stressed to his players he wants them to practice faster.

That energy carried over a few minutes later when asked his assessment of his first training-camp day as a head coach.

“Great to see everybody!” he exclaimed to reporters.

“This is a special time, man. We do a great job here. Everybody, all the people behind the scenes setting up training camp and getting all the 12s out here...man, you can’t take the smile off your face.”

“To be in this setting and this organization, this city, these fans, our guys, so it’s a special day. It’s awesome. Really a great start with the guys. Day one is in the books so, a long way to go.

“But we’re off to a good start.”

Mike Macdonald ‘cool with people’

It’s a long way from Baltimore for Macdonald.

A long, good way.

“I mean, it’s a lot of fun,” he said. “We’re out here playing football. We’re Seattle Seahawks, we’re on the lake, the fans are here, the music is going, it’s tough to beat.”

He’s been consumed with installing the defense he is trying to change from the NFL’s 30th-ranked unit last season. With new coordinator Ryan Grubb’s progress installing the offense. With new special-teams coordinator Jay Harbaugh putting in the kicking game — plus everything even a veteran head coach deals with.

On this first day, those all seemed to be secondary concerns.

The Boston native and former college student who coached high school football while a college undergraduate, who then pestered the University of Georgia football staff on his campus so much they finally offered him an unpaid volunteer position in 2010, appeared to be having the time of his life Wednesday.

“He’s cool with people. Coach is different, though,” Seahawks Pro Bowl cornerback Devon Witherspoon said. “He’s a brain guy, so he’s very smart and intellectual. It’s the way he builds defense, it is not natural or normal around the league. That’s what makes him different.

“Yeah, nerdy for sure. Nerdy for sure. But it is in a good way though, his own way and I think that’s what makes him who he is.”

Wednesday, Macdonald was a just-turned-37-year-old kid, attending his first NFL training camp of his favorite team.

The sun glistening off Lake Washington next to the practice field. The bald eagles soaring into and out of the tall trees above the west sideline of the field. The DJ playing music for the 1,000 or so season-ticket holders invited for the first practice of camp. The flag-football field set up on the third, south practice field for kids to play on. The axe-throwing cage on the side — with real axes.

Macdonald gushed over all of it.

The challenges of maximizing quarterback Geno Smith and receivers Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf, repairing the offensive line, fixing the defense, returning the Seahawks to the playoffs, those issues could wait.

For this first, wowing day, anyway.

“Once you’re in practice, it’s practice. You’re worried about all the things,” Macdonald said after camp day one. “But before practice, it felt a little different.

“Coming out here and you’re like, ‘Wow, OK, I’m responsible for what’s going on out here,’ it’s pretty cool.

“Like I say, you walk out here and it’s just a special place. This is the only place in the world that is like this. You pinch yourself that you have this opportunity to be here with these people and take advantage of this opportunity.

“So, here we are. And it’s a blessing, for sure.”