On the latest episode of Almost The Weekend, hosts Besa Gordon and Curtis Delgardo II sat down with Seattle journalist and newly published author Mike Dugar to talk about his debut book, The Franchise: Seattle Seahawks, A Curated History of the Legion of Boom Era.

For Dugar, holding the finished book in his hands was a surreal milestone. “It really didn’t even hit me until I got the advanced copies from the publisher,” he admitted. “I just opened the box and was like, y’all, I did that. That’s me. To see our last name on there, my family’s last name, that’s probably the coolest thing about it… that’s something everybody named Dugar can be proud of.”

He reflected on his journey from writing about small-town sports in northern Idaho to covering the Seahawks full-time in 2017. “I was writing about eight-man football, high school wrestling, tennis, hockey — I can’t even swim, but I covered swimming,” Dugar laughed. “That grind really prepared me to tell these stories when I got to the Seahawks. It was like boot camp for a writer.”

One of the most eye-opening revelations during his reporting was the way some players felt about Russell Wilson behind the scenes. “From the outside, people see Russ as squeaky clean, family man, no scandals,” Dugar explained. “But in the locker room, a lot of guys didn’t like how he got down. They had their reasons — and those reasons are in the book. That was the most shocking thing for me to learn.”

The conversation also touched on locker room fights, the infamous Frank Clark–Germain Ifedi training camp brawl, and the brotherhood that defined the Seahawks’ defensive unit. Dugar compared the team dynamic to family life: “They went to war at practice, they went to war because Pete Carroll made clear the guy pushing you the hardest Monday through Saturday is the guy you should love the most… They were really like a family in that way.”

When asked about the cultural impact of the Legion of Boom, Dugar was clear: “Seattle is often seen as an underdog city. But the Legion of Boom said, ‘Forget that. We’re the dogs.’ They demanded respect, they demanded attention, and they made it so you couldn’t ignore Seattle anymore.”

The book also provides deeper human context to players like Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, and Marshawn Lynch. Dugar shared a funny first phone call with Marshawn, who joked, “Your name Michael Shawn? My name Marshawn. I could be your pops.” For Dugar, moments like that reinforced the importance of telling these stories with care: “I just felt like a Black journalist had to tell this story, and I’m glad I got to do it first.”

Fans can grab The Franchise: Seattle Seahawks, A Curated History of the Legion of Boom Era at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, local bookstores, or directly from Dugar himself. As he told the hosts, “Everywhere books are sold — or out the trunk, if you catch me at Lumen Field.”

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Photos by Susan Fried on behalf of Converge Media