John Carlson is the Seahawks 2008 second round draft choice this season out of Notre Dame. He is a 6-5, 251-pound native of Litchfield, Minn., and vying for the starting tight end spot. Carlson was married three weeks ago in Tampa to the former Danielle Herndon, who was the captain of the volleyball team at Notre Dame. He will periodically blog on Seahawks.com during the course of training camp.
Honestly, things have been so crazy in my life recently that I haven't had a chance to sit down and comprehend everything that has gone on with me. I'm sure at some point I'll look back when things settle down a little bit and it will hit me: 'Wow, those 2-3 months were a pretty wild transition in my life.'
Even though we're living in the dorms, I do talk to Danielle every day. Coach Holmgren gave us a few hours Wednesday evening to get out, so I got to go home and eat dinner with her. Things are settling down a little bit now. She's doing a great job getting the apartment together and decorated. Her mom is still here to help her get settled in, and they're headed out Saturday. And then Danielle is going to go up and meet us in Minnesota for the game next (Friday) week.
The other thing that happened was Sarah Hasselbeck (Matt's wife) was very kind and welcomed Danielle to the city and the team. And she had Danielle over for lunch, which was very nice of her and went a long way toward making us feel welcome.
Every day on the field there are things that stand out to me as weaknesses in my game and things that have to be improved upon for me to feel like I'm doing the job the way I need to on the field. The goal is to continue to improve every day and I'm working on it. Obviously, it's not perfect yet, but that's the way I look at it.
That's what training camp is for and why we have so much time to practice and work on the weaknesses and fine tune things. I like the way things are coming along at this point. It's growing each day, with the goal to be more comfortable every time I step on the field. You always want this day to be better than the day before, and that is happening.
We've still got a ways to go, but I'm working on it. I'm excited about the scrimmage tomorrow. It's always good to get out there and play the real game of football. Practice isn't really football, it's practice. Unless you're tackling to the ground, it's not the game of football. It's preparation for the game of football.
We didn't do that very often at Notre Dame either. We would have a few live periods during spring ball, and at certain times during the season we would have live periods of practice, but not every often. Having fans in the stands and tackling will make it fun. To have people in the stands cheering and being entertained by us ... that's what this is all about.
You play the game to enjoy what you're doing for a living and having people in the stands makes it even more fun for everybody.
