RENTON, Wash. - It's one thing that Jim Mora's incomparable drive and boundless energy impress the Seahawks he coaches. After all, he controls their livelihood, so bowing to the boss isn't a bad idea.
It's much more impressive that one of the world's premier mountaineers, a man who knows no limits, is blown away by this 47-year-old, this dynamic force hoping to transform Seattle in his second go-around as an NFL head coach.
"Coach Mora, he's so driven. It's phenomenal watching him," says Ed Viesturs, who recently climbed Mount Everest for the seventh time and is the first American to summit the world's 14 tallest peaks without supplemental oxygen.
Last month, Viesturs successfully led Mora, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, Seahawks CEO Tod Leiweke and others to the top of Washington's 14,411-foot Mount Rainier.
Viesturs has reached the summit of Rainier countless times. Yet he notes how difficult the two-day, 12-plus-hour slog in crampons over crevasses and up rope lines is, especially for first-timers like Mora.
"When we got to the top, we're all tired and guys are excited to have made it," Viesturs said. "And Jim was looking for more mountain.
"He wanted to do more!"
He always wants to do more.
This husband and father of four runs before dawn up rugged Tiger Mountain near his suburban home on Seattle's east side, where he went to high school. Players who have taken him up on invites to join him have vomited during the workout.
Because Mora's always running, so are his Seahawks. Between plays, drills - heck, even meetings, if the hallway's wide enough.
When asked at the end of last season what these Seahawks could expect from Mora after 10 years under Mike Holmgren, Patrick Kerney thought back to when Mora coached him with the Falcons. Then he smiled.
"Running," Kerney said.
"I'll never forget the first time I met him in Atlanta," the two-time Pro Bowl defensive end said Thursday. "He comes in, new coach, all this energy. I was like, OK, he's new. He's excited. I expected it to wane a little over time.
"It hasn't."
Mora left Atlanta on New Year's Day 2007, fired but proud. He led the Falcons to the NFC championship game in his rookie season as a head coach. He was 26-22 over three tumultuous seasons, joining Leeman Bennett as the only Falcons coaches to leave with a winning record.
On his way out, he vowed to be an NFL head coach again - and remain one for another 20 years.
"It's the fabric of my life," he says.
He had two interviews with the Dolphins about replacing Nick Saban, but instead returned to his boyhood home of Seattle. His father Jim, the former coach of the Saints and Colts, was an assistant in the 1970s under Don James at the University of Washington. The younger Mora was a walk-on linebacker for the Huskies in the early '80s.
Mora bided his time for two seasons as an overqualified Seahawks defensive assistant. Then Seattle hired him as Holmgren's replacement for 2009. An awkward, coach-in-layaway plan played out last season.
"I've been looking forward to being back on the sideline in that role," Mora said. "I think there'll be an adjustment period ... probably throughout the preseason. But I'm excited."
He has a four-year contract that pays him nearly $5 million a season, in the upper echelon of league coaches. He also has the unwavering support of team president Tim Ruskell. Ruskell was Atlanta's assistant general manager in 2004 when the Falcons surprised many by choosing Mora, then the defensive coordinator in San Francisco, as their head coach over Chicago assistant Lovie Smith and others.
"I just noticed how the players gravitated to him." Ruskell said. "He's an energy guy, right? Teams take on the personality of their coach, and it became that. And that year, we didn't really know what we were going to be. We were coming off a poor season. That's exactly what the team needed."
Seattle has the same need now. The Seahawks finished 4-12 last season, their worst record since 1992.
Mora brought along his former Falcons offensive coordinator, Greg Knapp, to replace Holmgren's more finesse, pass-first system with a grinding run game. The defense is attacking more now under first-time coordinator Gus Bradley.
Mora has even practiced flea-flickers and double-reverse passes, tricks Holmgren despised.
And Mora's level of detail is seemingly as boundless as his energy. Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck says these Seahawks are practicing situations he hasn't seen in his 12 years in the league.
One morning this month, the offense worked a late-game, third-down situation in which the play's result was near a first down with no timeouts remaining. While team attendants brought out chains to measure, Mora had the field-goal unit run - of course - onto the field. He kept Hasselbeck in to be the holder.
Mora had the team practice it both ways: If it was short of the line to gain, the field goal was tried. If the offense got the first down, Hasselbeck ran the field-goal team to the line then spiked the ball to kill the fictitious clock.
While it's a situation all teams likely discuss in meetings, Seattle hadn't actually practiced it in anyone's memory.
As Mora's first training camp of his second NFL chance ended Thursday, gasping players marveled at the unrelenting pace of two-a-days and meetings - and at having had one day off from July 31 through this weekend.
"It's like Camp Grind 'Em Out here, you know," former Bengals wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh said, laughing.
Cornerback Ken Lucas just finished his ninth NFL camp. He said this was the fastest-paced and most mentally taxing one yet.
"We've been practicing so fast, the game seemed easy," he said of last weekend's preseason-opening win at San Diego. "We're pushing it so hard. I really appreciate coach Mora picking up the tempo.
"It's kind of hard to say you can't do something when he's running up mountains on weekends. If he can do that, we can do this. It's going to pay off."
Mora's Falcons led the NFL in rushing every year, but the Falcons struggled badly once the opponent took the lead. Under Mora, Atlanta was 0-17 when entering the fourth quarter with a deficit.
His tenure there also included an odd series of off-field distractions, including the embarrassment he caused himself during a Seattle radio station interview before a key game against Dallas in December 2006.
Mora said his "dream job" was to return to coach at Washington and that he'd jump at a chance to take it - even if the Falcons were in the middle of the playoffs. Mora later said he was only kidding with the radio host, former Huskies teammate Hugh Millen.
The comments upset Falcons fans and angered team owner Arthur Blank.
So how has Mora changed from his Atlanta tenure?
"There's been a definite distinction in the way he's approached it with the players," Knapp said. "He's probably not quite as close with the players. That's not to say he's distancing himself from them - he's still got a select veteran group he listens to, because he still wants their input.
"But there is more urgency now, and he keeps more of a distance."
Yet another reason why Mora is always running.
