By Angelica Medina
Feb 3 (Reuters) - Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said on Tuesday his team's improbable Super Bowl journey was not fuelled by proving doubters wrong, but by an internal makeover focused on authenticity over outside noise.
The second-year coach outlined his culture-first philosophy at a Super Bowl media event, crediting a "loose and focused" mentality for carrying one of the NFL's youngest rosters to Sunday's championship showdown against the New England Patriots.
"What was important
for us was to become a championship team. We weren't that in the spring," Macdonald told reporters at a press conference for the event.
"In order to get to a stage like this and win a game like this, it's got to be real, and that's what you have to become," he added.
The Seahawks entered the season as long shots with few analysts predicting their Super Bowl berth, but Macdonald insisted external opinions never mattered.
"We said it after the championship game that we didn't care. We really don't," he said. "That's out of our control. It's not how we operate on a day-to-day basis."
Central to Seattle's success has been balancing enjoyment with accountability during the pressure-packed Super Bowl week.
"What doesn't change is our principles and the things that we're about on a moment-by-moment basis," Macdonald added. "We're going to enjoy these moments. We're also going to be focused ... we have an accountability to our process."
The 38-year-old coach credited strategic personnel moves, starting with hiring offensive coordinator Clint Kubiak. "Clint was the first person we talked to. Our visions were aligned on what we were trying to create."
The team's roster, the league's third-youngest, was built primarily through the draft and bolstered by veteran additions including receiver Cooper Kupp and linebacker Ernest Jones IV.
The coach's leadership philosophy stems from college lessons about servant leadership.
"I used to think of leadership as a position and like a position of power. It became very clear to me very quickly, it is not about you, and it's about how well you can serve the people that you're surrounded with," he added.
(Reporting by Angelica Medina in San Francisco; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
