News Editor
Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator Dan Quinn helped lead his team to a 43-8 victory over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII earlier this month, and became the first ever Salisbury University alumnus to win a Super Bowl as a coach.
“It’s been a blast; I’ve been so fortunate,” Quinn said. “We have a real style about how we play and I love being part of that; we’re fast, we’re physical and the group we work with now always feels like we have something to prove.”
The Seahawks defense was ranked No.1 in points and yards per game in the National Football League this season. Some NFL analysts and writers have compared Quinn’s defense to some of the greatest of all time.
“Our whole philosophy is each game that we play is a championship opportunity, from the regular season’s first game, to the 16th and through the playoffs so we really don’t change the way we prepare for a game,” Quinn said. “We make sure we have just the right amount of information against the opponent but also want to play (our) style and not lose sight of that.”
The Seahawks shut down five-time MVP Peyton Manning and the highest rated statistical offense in NFL history to win Super Bowl XLVIII. Quinn played high school football for Morristown High School, about 30 minutes away from MetLife stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where the Seahawks won the Super Bowl.
Quinn played defensive line and track and field at SU for four years and graduated in the class of 1994. He also competed for a national championship in track and field his senior year and majored in elementary education. Quinn planned on returning home to coach high school football and track, but he said his time at SU made him want to coach college football.
Quinn said he not only paid attention to his SU football coach at the time, Joe Rotellini, but watched Jim Berkman coach the SU men’s lacrosse team and Ward Lambert coach the SU men’s basketball team in the early ‘90s.