Largent Was Quite a Catch : Pro football: The Seahawks receiver takes a load of records with him into retirement. But he leaves behind a legacy of dedication.

SEATTLE —  The conventional wisdom on Steve Largent in 1976 was that he was too small and too slow to make it in the NFL. This weekend he retires after 14 seasons with the Seattle Seahawks and after proving he was simply too much for even the best defenders in football.

He will take with him every meaningful receiving record and leave behind a legacy of lessons in hard work and dedication to the sport that even opponents admire.

“He’s the kind of guy you love to play against,” Kansas City defensive back Albert Lewis said. “You love to play him for the competition, not as someone to get even against. And when he’s not playing against you, you root for him. That’s the kind of guy he is.”

At 35, Largent holds six NFL receiving records: career receptions (817), career yards (13,048), career touchdowns (100), seasons with 50 or more catches (10), seasons with 1,000 or more yards (8) and consecutive games receiving a pass (176). He is a seven-time Pro Bowl selection, starting in three games for the AFC.

This season, he has struggled, as have the Seahawks, who are 7-8 going into Saturday’s game against the Washington Redskins. Largent spent six games on injured reserve with a broken bone in his right elbow, and has 26 receptions for 362 yards, both career lows.

But he came back to get his 100th career touchdown on Dec. 12 against Cincinnati, the game in which he surpassed 13,000 yards.

Largent was picked up by the fledgling Seahawks in their first season. They got him from Houston, which cut him because it had a bunch of leggy receivers.

He wasn’t flashy but perhaps his humility and lack of presence was part of his strength.

“One of the things that helped me have the kind of career I have,” Largent said, “was that I never reached the point where I thought I had arrived.”

He can relax now. Friends and former football foes are lining up to tell stories of how Largent taught them lessons of the game.

Largent’s talents are there, but they lie within rather than in obvious physical traits, said Lynn Swann, the former Pittsburgh Steelers receiver who now is a television announcer.

Lester Hayes, who retired from the Raiders in 1986, said he clearly remembers the first time he laid eyes on the man who redefined zigging and zagging, in 1977.

“I laughed at him,” Hayes recalled. “He didn’t look like a receiver, he looked like an insurance salesman. I thought, ‘I should be able to dominate this guy.’ But I’ll tell you what, he is God’s gift. I’ve covered everybody in the NFL--all those high-tech speed guys--but I’ve never covered anybody who gave me as many problems as Steve Largent did.”

Largent was never slow and never small. He still runs 40 yards in 4.6 seconds and has used his 5-foot-11, 191-pound frame to tackle opponents.

But it was his ability to twist and turn, and read his opponent, that put him at the top of the league.

Largent said he has been asked how he wants to be remembered in football “and I always feel like we’re drawing up an epitaph. But I’m not dying, I’m just moving on to something else.”

Just what he will do next is still not definite, Largent said. He has rejected the idea of becoming athletic director at Tulsa, he said, which reportedly had been a possibility. He will be a commentator with Turner Broadcasting next summer when the Goodwill Games are staged in the Seattle area, and there is the possibility of doing broadcast work with networks covering the NFL.

He said he’s not sure he has the ability to be a sports announcer. But he supposedly didn’t have the talent to be a pro receiver, either.