Game is a Bledsoe family affair

They're all together, Drew Bledsoe's extended family, his former baby-sitter and high-school basketball coach and hundreds of others bound by Mac and Barb.

They are Drew Bledsoe's parents, and their life's map is on display at the north parking lot Sunday morning at Qwest Field. There are friends and family from Kittitas, Waterville, Benton City, Walla Walla and Yakima, drawn together because the boy they've always known now starts at quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys.

An afternoon of football with the Bledsoe family starts here, with all of them together, and that's what matters most.

That's what they'll hold onto when it ends, when Walla Walla native Drew Bledsoe tosses his second interception of the game into the hands of Jordan Babineaux and Seahawks kicker Josh Brown boots the winning field goal.

Mac and Barb have seen it all. They had two children, moved 14 times, published books on parenting and watched hundreds and hundreds of games like these. But Sunday was special no matter how it ended. Because Drew's younger brother, Adam, is expecting his first child any day now. Because Drew was returning home.

But most of all, because they were together.

"A year ago, he played here in a game," Mac said. "In the previous 12 years, I've only seen him point at the stands twice. In that game, he stopped at six different occasions and pointed up in the stands. Because this is his home.

"This deal with the NFL is a lot of fun. But one of the things that brings Drew the most joy is the amount of people that are able to share in it."

For the Bledsoes, quantity is quality. They bought 156 tickets for this game, and Mac estimated that as many as 200 more people bought their own.

And there they were at 11 a.m., munching on a cooler full of enough Subway sandwiches to feed spokesman Jared for a year, wearing No. 11 Cowboys jerseys and passing out white Cowboys hats.

People like Shirley Poe, who lives in Newport News, Va., and has known the Bledsoe family for 37 years. She went to dinner with Drew and crew on Saturday night at Daniel's Broiler on Lake Union.

"And I told him, 'If they don't protect you, I'm going to run down on that field and give those guys a whuppin',' " Poe said.

Not more than 20 feet away stood Dori Bennett, Drew Bledsoe's former baby-sitter who lives in Seattle. She remembered how much he always loved to compete — in football, in ping-pong, in foosball, even in three-legged Easter egg hunts where he'd sneak off with somebody else's eggs.

"That's what we all love about Drew," Bennett said. "Football doesn't define him as a person. He's part of this family, of all these people around here. There's a connection there."

So they came for that connection. People like Shorty Bennett, Dori's father, who lives in Spokane and taught Drew Bledsoe a thing or 20. He remembers Bledsoe being "a little clumsy" in junior high.

He remembers the time at his annual Northwest Football Camp when a 1-year-old Bledsoe went to the bathroom in the alligator shoes of Hall of Fame receiver Fred Biletnikoff. And he remembers when Bledsoe passed the 40,000-yard career passing mark. He gave Bennett the ball with a note.

"Hey Shorty, thanks for teaching me how to throw it."

They all have Bledsoe stories, each and every one of them, a broken Bledsoe record playing well into the afternoon.

Like Steve Dorsey, from Wenatchee, who remembers the first day Mac showed up to coach the high-school football team in Waterville, a town of about 1,000 people.

"He came around the corner, this big guy, wearing cutoff jeans, riding a Harley Davidson," Dorsey said. "We were like, 'Oh, my God. Our coach is a biker!' "

Or Kris Simons, who grew up with Drew from the time both were infants. She thinks of Drew like a brother.

"To us, he's just Drew Bledsoe," Simons said. "He's not the star quarterback. We just know him as the person we all grew up with. He's never changed. Mac and Barb always say that friends are the family that you choose. That's why we're all connected."

They are all connected — Mac's buddies from the annual Biker Bash Boogie they hold on Whitefish Lake in Montana, friends, family and former students spread all over eastern Washington.

After the tailgate, they move to Section 305, all 156 of them and the others who purchased tickets on their own. Mac raises his right arm when Drew lobs a touchdown pass in the first quarter. Barb snaps away with the digital camera.

Throwing an interception late in the fourth quarter is bad enough. To do it in front of his extended family leaves Bledsoe "doubly disappointed."

They all were. But they also were together. And that's what they'll remember about this afternoon of football.

"They don't care how he plays," Barb said. "They support him, good and bad, win or loss. That's a reflection of our village. These people support Drew. They're here because of him."