The No. 12, Like the Seahawks, Is Inevitable

As Seattle stormed back to another Super Bowl, its fan base and its devotion to that numeral got Greg Bishop thinking: Maybe he’s had 12 wrong all along.

Seahawk fans always proudly show their 12th man spirit by wearing No. 12 jerseys. | Kevin Ng-Imagn Images

Twelve is everywhere. All over the world. Prominent in most cultures and religions. Yes, this is about the number. Humans could hardly survive without it.

Twelve is the Tom Brady of numbers, and that’s not because Brady always wore those digits on his jersey. He only added to an existing reputation, which outpaces even his own. Twelve is as versatile as Seahawks safety Nick Emmanwori, as significant as New England’s place in pro football history, and more central to the world than the NFL or the Super Bowl or all of major sports and all of their championships combined.

Wouldn’t recommend a deep dive here. Made that mistake already. The bounty of articles, analyses, psychology and variance is overwhelming. As in, to read.

Twelve is an Angel Number. Twelve is a dozen. The geometry of 12 is considered sacred, even, because it maps time, space and existence. If there were a scouting combine for numbers, 12 would shine, dominate, ace not one metric but all of them. Twelve is a composite number, the smallest abundant number, a refactorable number, a Pell number, a highly composite number, the smallest of two known sublime numbers, the highest number consisting of one syllable and a Superior Highly Composite Number. In other words, 12 has functionality and heft.

There are 12 zodiac signs. Twelve—inches in a foot, hours in a day, pitch classes in an octave, hues in a color wheel, Apostles, Tribes of Israel, animals in Chinese astrology. And then there are the 12s, as Seattle Seahawks fans loudly and collectively describe themselves. Not to be confused with the 12th Man, a title to which Seattle’s football fans did not win and do not own the trademark. But even that—a lawsuit … over a number … to describe a fan base … the phrase itself, lacking in creativity, to begin with—speaks to the power of …

No. 12.

I’ve had 12 wrong all along

Subconsciously, I’ve been resisting telling this story my entire life. I grew up in Tacoma, Wash., after moving from Colorado. Picture a young, bespectacled, nerdy Broncos fan in a sea of Hawks. We’d go to one home game every season, against Denver, in the Kingdome, and we’d sit way up top, sometimes in the highest row in one corner or another. It’s not that I disliked the Seahawks or those who rooted for them. It would have been tough to avoid without relocating. I even forgive the one future 12 who spotted my Broncos’ Starter jacket and told me John Elway, and I shared the same buck teeth (accurately).

I don’t recall anyone calling Seattle’s football fan base the 12s back then. That happened after I started covering the NFL, after I lost all fandom, even as 12s came to dominate my life—in Seahawk form. When I went to college, maybe one-third of my friends were fans. When I wrote for The Seattle Times during the franchise’s first Super Bowl push—Walter Jones, Mike Holmgren, Shaun Alexander, Matt Hasselbeck, Lofa Tatupu—maybe half were. By the time the Legion of Boom cemented itself in the national consciousness, almost every person I knew living in Washington state, period, considered themselves the biggest 12, of all 12s, in all their 12-ing and No. 12 jerseys, forming what has long been the single-best stadium environment in the NFL.

All 12s are not created equal. Just like not all numbers are not like No. 12. There are diehards, like my buddy Matty, fans who loved the Seahawks before everyone embraced them. Who flew, like he did, to New York for Seattle’s first championship, crashing, along with eight other 12s, in my one-bedroom apartment in Columbus Circle, before tears dripped down his face when the Legion decimated Denver’s offense in a blowout. There are 12s—gonna leave the names out—who don’t know of a Seahawk who predates the Russell Wilson era. Don’t know Jones, Cortez Kennedy, Steve Largent or Kenny Easley.

I always thought it was strange, the proliferation of No. 12 jerseys all over the greater Seattle area. Hundreds and hundreds of Seahawks have risked their lives, their health and their futures to don those uniforms. And rather than choose one of those, any of those, so many instead decide to celebrate other fans. If this story had a soundtrack, cue the Sad Trombone.

But as Seattle stormed back to another Super Bowl, that got me thinking: Maybe I’ve had 12 wrong all along.

Seahawks fans wave their 12th Man flags on Blue Friday during the NFL season. | MEEGAN M. REID/KITSAP SUN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

12 is a differentiator

Twelve is central to the cosmic order. Twelve is central to many things. In astrology, the 12th house is considered the gateway to transcendence, which starts with surrender and release, thus beginning a new cycle of growth. Whose house? TWELVE’S HOUSE! (I’ll see myself out.) In music, the twelve-bar blues ranks among the most prominent chord progressions in world history. In the spiritual realm, 12 combines leadership (1) and balance (2).

All this, in many ways, some of them stretching the boundary of literary license, is the Seattle Seahawks. Central to the cosmic order of this NFL season. Standing at the gateway to transcendence. Another contender, marking a new cycle of growth. Lumen Field might as well be the 12th House. Leadership and balance—that’s head coach Mike Macdonald.

The best 12, in relation to the 12s, though, is obvious. It’s Force 12, which falls on something called the Beaufort Wind Force Scale. Force 12 is hurricane force—in other words, the Seahawks’ defense.

I couldn’t shake the No. 12 after diving down that rabbit hole—or 12 of them. This is my 12th Super Bowl cover. Three of those featured the NFL’s most famous No. 12. One, from his lone victory in Tampa, didn’t feature a single word out front beyond the name of our magazine.

Brady’s jersey—and his arms raised in triumph—said all that needed to be said.

This began a brief but telling hunt for an expert on the 12s. The fan base should look to KIRO Newsradio reporter Luke Duecy, who grew up a Seahawks fan, clad in a Jim Zorn jersey, and has written about that number and its significance in, why not, at least a dozen ways. (Any 12s who don’t know who Zorn is must now become Browns fans.)

Before the Seahawks’ appearance in Super Bowl XLIX, against No. 12 and his Patriots, Duecy and colleagues rented an RV and drove to the game in Arizona. They brought a “massive” 12 flag with them. When they stopped, they draped the flag over that RV, then laid out Sharpies for any 12s, in any city they stopped in, to add their signatures.

They didn’t expect, well, what happened. At each subsequent stop, the crowds grew larger; the competition for Sharpies, more intense. By the time the RV lumbered into Las Vegas, headed toward an unofficial Seahawks fan club off The Strip, some 300 fans were waiting in the parking lot. They shouted: “Where’s the flag? Where’s the flag???”

That was proof of another way in which the 12 rules. So’s the chant, which starts “SEA” and ends “HAWKS” and can now be heard by any greater Seattle resident who happens to run errands on a weekday afternoon during football season. Everyone wears Seahawks colors on Blue Friday.

In this case, 12 is a differentiator. If you heard Seahawks legend Richard Sherman do that exact call-and-response before the NFC championship game and didn’t cry or scream until your vocal cords were rendered useless, then you weren’t a 12. You aren’t a 12. No sacred geometry for you!

“All of a sudden, it’s your religion,” Duecy says. “It’s just the thing. It’s just … the thing … you share. I don’t know how to explain …”

That works. These 12s, the real ones, they end every phone call with two words.

Go Hawks.

Former Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman embraced Seahawks fans during his playing days continues to do so today. | Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images

The heft of No. 12

So maybe the 12s, like the No. 12, are endearing, lovable, impactful—and on games, with a seismologist present to capture their collective Richter scale readings. How else would anyone enjoy the Beast Quake?

Texas A&M can have its 12th man. FC Bayern Munich can refuse to let any player wear that number, which is, in theory, reserved for its supporters. Same for several other soccer clubs around the world and the Seahawks. But how many of those other teams or their fan bases have registered an earthquake through their vocal cords?

Funny, too, because the closest thing to a literal translation of 12 comes from the ancestor of the Germanic languages, Proto-Germanic. It’s liban, or “to leave.” Thus, the implicit meaning: two are left.

The Seahawks and the Patriots. The 12s and New England’s nation.

Only Seattle, though, carries the heft of No. 12 into this Super Bowl rematch. In mythology, 12 signifies progress and positive energy—that’s the Seahawks’ locker room vibe. Twelve is new beginnings (Macdonald took over in 2024), harmonic partnerships (his bond with general manager John Schneider) and positive change (the 2025 season). Twelve is great for confidence (Seattle is favored on Sunday) and for karma (we almost made it through this essay without mentioning that Super interception in XLIX, didn’t we?).

Even on Super Bowl Opening Night, the circus that masquerades as a journalist endeavor but, like everything else, centers on little more than additional revenue streams, the chants were everywhere. Outside, where the line wrapped around three blocks, hundreds of Seattle jerseys, easily the highest tally, there it was. SEA!

HAWWWKKKSSS!

At the podiums during Seattle’s interview portion, the same chant. SEA!

HAWWWKKKSSS!

Cornerback Devon Witherspoon called the 12s call a “natural reaction.” His fans, Witherspoon said, had “the most energy in the building,” were “the best fans in the world.” He gave them a shoutout. So did safety Julian Love. So did defensive end Leonard Williams, broadening, like the No. 12 and the 12s, to shout out 12s in the United Kingdom!

Macdonald, meanwhile, described Seattle’s strength as its synergy. He included the fan base alongside his best defensive players. He shouted out the German 12s! The No. 12 had rarely felt so special as it did on Monday night.

This week, according to one 12s member, Daven Clayton, a giant No. 12 flag will be flown over the Golden Gate Bridge. The 12s, he says, raised more than $30,000 to make that happen. This might sound unusual. But perhaps not after you hear the context. Clayton wore a Darth Vader mask to Lumen Field this season. He will travel to LX in what he calls the Beast Bus, a tricked-out double-decker that belongs in a sports museum—he sent pictures—with a massive neon Seahawks logo stretching across the side.

Clayton will do all this not because he is exceptional in his fandom. Nor because he really liked decorating a double-decker bus to pay homage to his favorite player (Lynch) and favorite team. He will do this because he is one of the 12s, part of No. 12 and its illustrious place in human existence.

I still can’t say that I love this concept. But I’m warming to it, and there it is. The No. 12, like the Seahawks, is inevitable.

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