As the proud wife of Seattle assistant coach Klint Kubiak, Tessa (Nelson) Kubiak is savoring this year’s ride to Super Bowl LX
Super Bowl Sunday means different things to different people.
Hardcore football fans — those who wear NFL jerseys every Sunday and maybe run three or four fanatsy football teams — will be paying close attention, of course, and millions of others will be focused on throwing a party and watching more for the commercials and halftime show than they are for the game itself.
For Tessa, the big game carries extra special meaning, and she won’t even be watching the commercials, because she’ll be there in person.
Tessa, a 2005 graduate of Tracy Area High School, is married to Seattle Seahawks’ offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, whose ascension on the NFL coaching ladder likely won’t end this weekend after the Seahawks play in Super Bowl LX against New England.
“There have been really cool parts about being married to an NFL coach — we’ve lived all over the country, met lots of cool people and have gotten to fall in love with different cities,” Nelson said. “It makes it so fun to be invested; you care so much about the game when you have friends and family that coach or play. It makes it so real. I’ve always loved football, and now I have people I know on every team. It makes it hard on Sundays; you don’t know for sure who to root for.”
Although Tessa, the daughter of Bill and Cathy Nelson, was born in Sioux Falls, she is and always will be a Balaton girl. Tessa’s stellar high school volleyball career included First Team All-State honors her senior year, and that volleyball success translated well to the next level at Colorado State University.
She played in all 30 matches as a redshirt freshman — she was the first player in CSU history to hail from Minnesota — and went on to have a decorated volleyball career as a Ram.
Aside from her prowess on the court, there is another reason CSU means so much to Tessa. It was there that she met her future husband, who, like her, was a college athlete, starring on the gridiron. The two were married in 2010 and moved to Seattle last summer.
Kubiak was hired by the Vikings in 2013 as an offensive quality control coach and assistant wide receivers coach. After coaching receivers at the University of Kansas, Kubiak went back to the NFL as an offensive assistant under his father, Gary. From there, it was back to the Vikings as the team’s quarterback coach, followed by another stint with the Broncos as their passing game coordinator.
His NFL coaching journey then brought him to San Francisco and New Orleans before he landed the job as Seattle’s offensive coordinator.
Tessa said the life as a spouse of an NFL coach is an exciting one, but does have it drawbacks.
“The hard part is definitely moving,” said Nelson, the mother of four kids, each under the age of 10. The family has moved five times in five years.
“It’s hard on our kids, but they are troopers, and we feel lucky to have friends from all over the country who stay in touch and visit,” she said. “His work scehdule is pretty tough, but every summer we are able to fly to Minnesota, and visit with my family and spend time on the farm.”
While her current loyalities are with the Seahakws, Tessa will always be a Viking fan at heart, a sentiment that can be traced to her younger days, watching them with her father and brother Drew.
“I think my mom would kind of be worn out by Sunday, and we would get sent off with my dad, so every Sunday we were watching the Vikings in his friend’s garage,” Nelson said. “I have been a pretty diehard Viking fan since I was a kid. I still cheer for the Vikes.”
Tessa still volunteers virtually with Tracy Area Animal Rescue, a local volunteer-driven non-profit run by her mother that welcomes animals to rescue from unfortunate situations and houses them in volunteer foster homes while preparing them for adoption placement.
