When Tod Leiweke arrived in Seattle, he heard them all: the long, sometimes tortured accounts from fans about the tragic recent history of the Seahawks. It was mid-2003, after a 2002 campaign in which the Seahawks finished with a downbeat 7-9 record. It seemed as if the team were destined to be a loser. As it turns out, that was the last year the Seahawks had a losing season. Entering his fifth season as the Seahawks' CEO, Leiweke presides over a team that's near its apex, both on and off the field.

Leiweke's job is to watch the bottom line, to take care of the day-to-day business operations and to promote the Seahawks organization. Decisions about players are largely left to Tim Ruskell, Mike Holmgren and others. But as fans know all too well, the two parts are closely intertwined. When business isn't running well in the front office, it has a habit of bleeding over to the field. And, of course, vice versa.

"When everything gets in a bit of harmonic convergence, it all starts to run great," Leiweke says, sitting at his desk at the Seahawks' Kirkland headquarters, tucked away in a lush green residential neighborhood. "We're competing on the field, and we're competing off the field, too."

While those who work with Leiweke give him credit for the team's turnaround, the 47- year-old CEO points to the man who hired him, Seahawks owner Paul Allen. If Allen hadn't stepped up and bought the team in 1997, for $146 million, Leiweke would not be there. Neither would the team. "If not for [Allen], the Seahawks would have left, I think," says Leiweke. "The NFL would have left and never come back."

It's those years before Paul Allen and Mike Holmgren came to the Seahawks that Leiweke heard about most when he arrived here. After a largely successful run as the team's original owner, the Nordstrom family sold to Ken Behring in 1988. The Behring years were infamous. He became public enemy No. 1 among Seahawks fans in the late 1980s and early '90s. During his tenure of eight seasons, the team that tore up the AFC West during much of the 1980s ended with a record of 8-8 or better only twice.

Then there was the thwarted move in 1996. Longtime fans still get red-faced with anger when they recall how Behring had some of the team's equipment loaded onto trucks one night and set up offices in Anaheim, Calif. He'd done so without asking anyone, including NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who ordered the team back to Seattle. A legal tussle followed, with King County suing Behring for breaking his Kingdome lease and Behring countersuing.

Allen stepped in and offered to buy the team if a new stadium was built. It took a year to work out a deal, but Allen finally took over in 1997. The team didn't click on all gears immediately upon the ownership change, however. Allen relied on Bob Whitsitt, who also oversaw Allen's Portland Trail Blazers, to run the Seahawks.

A DIVISIVE FORCE

Whitsitt hired Holmgren as coach in 1999, and Holmgren also served as general manager for his first four years on the team. But insiders told the press repeatedly that Whitsitt was a divisive force in the front office, a problem that apparently intensified when he later took over as general manager.

Leiweke politely won't name names when talking of the Seahawks' past regimes. But he's been identified in press reports as the one who convinced Allen to fire Whitsitt in 2005, clearing the way for Tim Ruskell's arrival as GM. Ruskell, who has gained the respect of the league with his decisions, has worked harmoniously with Leiweke, each refraining from moving into the other's turf. "Tim Ruskell's forgotten more about football than I'll ever know," Leiweke says, adding that his colleague ribs him for being the one who uses sometimes-arcane language of financial statements. "It's really just a great fit." Ruskell and Holmgren are the more highprofile faces of the organization because their work determines who plays each Sunday. But in Seattle's business and charity circles, Leiweke is well known. "Tod's a high-energy guy who puts himself out in the community," says Kirk Thompson, president of Qwest Washington, which signed a 10-year agreement for the naming rights to Seahawks Stadium, now Qwest Field, in 2004.