Pete Carroll has had tremendous success as a coach. He won a national championship at the University of Southern California. He also won a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks. With Bill Belichick making a return to the sidelines, this time in the college ranks, at the age of 72, could Carroll, 73, return to either USC or the NFL?
Revisiting Pete Carroll’s Seahawks Coaching Career
Carroll paid his dues as an assistant or position coach for about two decades before earning his first opportunity to be a head coach. However, his coaching career really took off when he was at USC from 2001-2009.
After a successful stint at the college level, Carroll’s cache eventually evolved to where he became the head coach of the Seahawks in 2010, simultaneously holding the title of vice president of football operations.
One of his better player personnel decisions was opting to draft Russell Wilson from the University of Wisconsin in the third round of the 2012 NFL Draft. He became the starting quarterback in his rookie season and never looked back.
Wilson and the Seahawks went to the Super Bowl twice under Carroll. They won the big game during the 2013 season when they defeated the Denver Broncos 43-8.
Carroll joined Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer as the only coaches to win an NCAA championship and a Super Bowl title. Carroll won the Super Bowl at the age of 62, the third-oldest coach to win the title. Only Tom Coughlin of the New York Giants and Dick Vermeil of the Los Angeles Rams were older when they won their respective Super Bowls.
In Jan. 2024, the Seahawks and Carroll mutually agreed to part ways and Carroll surrendered the coaching position. He agreed to stay on as an advisor.
The Seahawks hired their new coach Mike Macdonald from the Baltimore Ravens, who vowed to keep the same culture of the team as instilled by Carroll.
Could Carroll Make a Return to Coaching in 2025?
Carroll, the former Seahawks coach, is not ready to come back to coaching just yet. He said he has the hunger for the game but does not have the desire to coach on the sidelines again.
People his age usually retire to Florida and take up golf. They spend time with their grandchildren. However, Carroll is in between emotions. He said he would love to coach in the NFL again, but he does not know when, or if, he will be ready.
There was some small talk of Carroll returning to USC if current head coach Lincoln Riley were to move on from the program. Carroll, however, shot that down and said he is comfortable teaching a class at the university and is well-settled, for now, in retirement from coaching.
Carroll is older but possibly still young enough to take over an NFL team and restore them to newfound glory. Stranger things have happened.
Back in August, Carroll told a radio station on the West Coast he could be ready at a moment’s notice to take over an NFL team and develop a coaching staff. It is just a question of when, or if, that moment will come again soon.
“Well, you know, I get asked a lot, so I’m pretty familiar with answering that I could coach tomorrow,” Carroll said in August to 93.3 KJR. “I’m physically in the best shape I’ve been in a long time. I’m ready to be ready to do all the activities that I’m doing and feeling really good about it. I could, but I’m not desiring it at this point.”
The ability and the desire both have to work hand in hand. Carroll worked hard to keep his job in Seattle, but it just did not work out.
Could another six months of retirement bring the desire back to Carroll?
For now, Carroll seems to be content with his instructor gig. He does not anticipate a return to the sidelines any time soon.
“We’ll see what happens,” he said. “I’m not really, I’m not waiting on it at all. I’m going ahead and I got other things that I want to do that I’m excited about, and I’m going to see how all that goes. I’m not thinking that it’s uh, that I’m holding my breath and that kind of thing. So, if it’s been 40-something years, 48 years, or whatever, coaching and that’s it, I feel OK about that.”