Actor and comedian Joel McHale excited about this year’s Seahawks

710 ESPN Seattle’s Danny, Dave and Moore announced last week they would give one of their listeners a pair of tickets to every Seahawks game this season. The catch? In order to get the tickets, the listener would have to have someone from this List of 100 People to call in on his or her behalf.

The trio got things started with a hilarious interview Thursday, when actor and comedian Joel McHale called in to the show on behalf of listener Scott Didrickson (who, like McHale, is a former Washington athlete himself).

Naturally, host Danny O’Neil had to know what the former Huskies tight end thought about the state of Washington football.

“Oh thank God,” McHale said. “The sun is rising and we are looking better and better every year. After the dark time of Mordor with Ty Willingham it is finally time and I can’t wait, I’m very excited.”

Long before he became a household name with popular shows like The Soup and Community, the Mercer Island native was recruited to Washington as a rower. McHale ultimately transitioned to football and explained his decision with a cringe-worthy story about … hair pillows?

“This one other rower and I were jumped by the varsity rowing team because we didn’t push in a chair properly, and I am not kidding when I say that,” McHale said. “There were all these crazy rules for rowers because – my theory was: the fewer the spectators of the sport, the more rituals you would have to make up to make yourself feel important. Like, they would shave all their hair and the eyebrows of the freshman and then put all that hair into a pillow. And there was a large display case of hair pillows at the little crew center, and it wasn’t creepy at all…”

McHale went on to talk Washington State football, growing up on Mercer Island, and his road to comedy. The longtime Seahawks fan also gave his own prediction for the upcoming season.

“I think the Seahawks are going to be great this year,” McHale said. “I really do. I think (it’s like) the way – and I hate to say this – the way that Bill Belichick with the Patriots kind of goes, ‘Alright we’ve got our quarterback who’s great,’ and then makes a lot of moves. The team is halfway unrecognizable every year. But a lot of the time (Belichick) makes a pretty decent call on who’s going to work. Whether that’s a young guy or a guy you haven’t heard of. I think that’s happened a lot for the Patriots. I don’t know if Pete Carroll’s taking a page out of his book, because Pete Carroll has done just fine with what he’s done, but I’m deeply excited and I think it’s going to be great.”

The “Six Degrees of Danny, Dave and Moore” contest runs through July 27. You can read more about it here.