Tattoos illustrate fan's monstrous obsession with Seahawks

HawkFiend was born in a tattoo parlor.

Four years ago, Bryan Murphy sat in artist Cody Hart's chair, wanting to commemorate the Seahawks' 2005 Super Bowl season with some serious ink. Murphy had seen an elaborate tattoo from an Oakland Raiders fan and said to himself, "There's no way I'm going to let a Raiders guy have a better tattoo."

So he turned his left leg from the knee down into a Seahawks tribute. When Hart finished the masterpiece, he said, "Man, you are a fiend for the Seahawks."

It stuck with Murphy. Then he went to a Halloween costume store, found a mask with two horns sticking out of the forehead and painted it blue and green. Next, he added some shoulder pads and Freddy Krueger-like gloves. He also went on Craigslist and spent $200 to buy the rights to another man's season tickets.

No more sitting at home, yelling at the television, trying to keep his passion for the Seahawks contained. At Qwest Field, he could be a monster on Sundays.

"HawkFiend is the crazed fan," says Murphy, who is the president of the Sea Hawkers booster club. "HawkFiend's job is to be there at Qwest with the other 67,000 people and help the team."

Most of the time, Murphy is "just your normal, average guy." He's a husband and father of three girls who lives in Covington. He works hard in a department for electronics returns at a nondescript Costco facility in Auburn.

But he's always been crazy about the Seahawks. Even though he didn't have season tickets until 2006, Murphy, who was 5 when the franchise debuted in 1976, grew up watching the team. His family made events out of meaningless exhibition games. Dinner would be rescheduled if it interfered with the Hawks. When Murphy was 13, he lost his dad, Donald Wayne Murphy, to cancer and made it his responsibility to continue the family fanaticism.

Now he has a detailed tattoo on his right leg to go with the left one. The right tattoo portrays the Seahawks as beasts of the NFC West, with HawkFiend in the middle in all green. When members of the Seahawks have seen the detail of his tattoos — the left leg includes images of 2005 heroes such as Matt Hasselbeck, Lofa Tatupu, Shaun Alexander and coach Mike Holmgren — they've signed his leg. Naturally, HawkFiend goes right to Hart's chair and has those signatures made permanent.

What will he do if the Seahawks ever win a Super Bowl? The plan is already in place.

"I have my whole back for that," HawkFiend says, laughing.

Jerry Brewer: 206-464-2277 or jbrewer@seattletimes.com, Twitter: @Jerry_Brewer