Keep the Seahawks? How about landing the Olympic Games?

Seattle’s future as a sports town could brighten in the next few months, and everyone–not just fans–will benefit. Fascinated disgust with the saga of the migrating Seahawks has tended to obscure this area’s bids for two of the most exciting sports events anywhere–the World Track and Field Championships in 1999 and the Olympic Games of 2008. Getting either one would be a coup for the whole Cascadia region of Washington, Oregon and British Columbia. Winning both bids is possible.

The third largest sporting event after the Olympics and the World Soccer Cup, the World Track and Field Championships is expected to attract more than 1,800 athletes from 198 countries, some 4,000 members of the media, and 600,000 spectators. The television audience can only be estimated in the billions. Amateur sports clubs and school athletics in the region would be energized and–as in the Goodwill Games of 1990–the region’s performing arts would find the sports events a good backdrop for a summer festival.

Selection of the U.S. bid city to compete for the World Track and Field Championships in 1999 is anticipated this weekend. Seattle’s leading competition is thought to be Palo Alto, Calif., home of Stanford University. Two weeks ago a U.S. track and field association team quietly surveyed Seattle to check out potential facilities and to test community support. The group was favorably impressed and invited the Seattle organizers to make a final presentation this weekend in Atlanta. If Seattle is chosen as U.S. bid city, which could happen as early as this Sunday, it will proceed to compete internationally this summer, with other contenders, including Seville and Beijing. Again, organizers think we have an excellent chance, partly because the track and field championships have never before been held in the United States.

Coordinating the Seattle bid is Tom Porter of Seafirst and chairing the overall Summer games organizing Committee is Clark Kokich of AT&T Wireless. The effort is backed by many businesses and such public figures as Mayor Norm Rice, Gov. Mike Lowry and the state Legislature. Leading the campaign day to day is Bob Walsh, the sports events impresario responsible for much of the Goodwill Games success, with other support coming from Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Project.

Hosting the 1999 World Championships would be a prestigious way to prepare for the Olympics–the competition of all competitions. Even if the Track and Field Championships do not come our way, the Summer Games Organizing Committee is mounting an effort to persuade the U.S. and international Olympics committees to smile on our bid for the 2008 Olympics. Indeed, 1999 is the year the choice of locations for 2008 will be determined, and despite Atlanta’s sponsorship of the games this year, the power of America’s financial and spectator market is such that by then another American bid could well succeed.

Once again, strong competition is inevitable. In the United States, it might include Chicago and Boston. Having lived in both of these cities in my youth, I would like to advise the Olympics Committee that in the summer they both suffer too much heat, humidity and–yes!–rain. In July and August, at least, the Pacific Northwest’s weather is incomparably athlete-friendly.

Seattle thus has a terrific opportunity to host the Olympics, too. With that in mind, contributors to the Summer Games Committee are lining up to make three-year commitments to promote the initial bid approval in 1999. Among the larger backers so far are such familiar names as the Sports Council of Seattle/King County, Holland America Line, Boeing, Microsoft, U.S. Bank, Seafirst Bank, Perkins Code, Motorola, AT&T and Providence Health Systems. But there also are interesting novelties, such as Paul Allen’s Portland Trail Blazers. Backing from other Oregon concerns, and some from Victoria and Vancouver, B.C., is expected because the Olympic sports and cultural events would take place throughout the region.

Indeed, Seattle organizers began this effort with the idea of making a bid on behalf of all of Cascadia. But, it quickly turned out that only one city can be the official sponsor. Still, cooperation among neighbors not only will be allowed, but a precedent for it may be set by Villach, in southern Austria, which is bidding to host the Winter Olympics of 2006. That Alpine city has the strong assistance of its neighbors in adjacent Italy and Slovenia, which will stage some of the events.

In our region, even the years of planning such transborder cooperation is bound to stimulate collateral efforts, such as getting better inter-city passenger rail service, developing a regional “two-nation vacation” approach to international tourism and creation of stronger cultural, environmental and trade ties. It will boost the visibility of this region in the world, as Seattle Port Commissioner Paul Schell has argued, far more than could be expected form any professional sports team’s achievement.

The truth, which always bears repeating, is that Seattle seems to move ahead internationally when it decides to hold a party. The Alaska-Yukon Exposition of 1911 helped our trade position and left us a developed site for a new University of Washington campus. The Century 21 World’s Fair gave us the Seattle Center and a base for a huge expansion of arts activities. The Goodwill Games of 1990 and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting of heads of state in 1994 improved our international standing ins ays direct (massive publicity) and indirect (Seattle is now the official home for America’s APEC OFFICE).

Hosting the Olympics–and, if we should be so lucky, the World Track and Field Championships–will help focus a lot of energy in a civic endeavor of major proportions. And it will give a richer local dimension to the term “major league.”