Namath Till Now

As I write I am in the middle of moving back to the Albany New York area.....you never know how much you got till you move. Luckily , I can move up slowly over a three month time frame so it has not been so hectic and stress inducing. But I am taking some time to answer a question recently asked of me at a House Party we gave on January 1st of this year. Why in hell am I a Jets fan. This was asked  by an obnoxious Cowboys fan that populate the Globe. OK....but a fair question. The decisions of youth can sometimes haunt  one throughout life and this is a small example I presume. So here is the answer......Joe Namath. It was 1965 and I was sort of a Giants fan. I watched YA Tittle in the early sixties. The great 50's 60's Giants quarterback. But 1964 season and you can look it up was a disaster. Tittle who was in the NFL championship game the year before was old suddenly and the team had dissolved. He was in his late thirties and retired after 64 to his Insurance and Financial Services Company. That Giant era was over. I lost interest in the game and did other things in my early teen years like become involved in The Beatles era. I however did watch one college game , The Orange Bowl with a talented wise ass quarterback named Joe Namath. He won and there was something about him. The Jets signed him for 1965. The old AFL seemed a proper fit for the brash kid from Bama. Suddenly he was all the news....he was introduced  at the old Toots Shores in NYC and for you trivia fans received his physical in Toots Shores bathroom. REALLY! The next couple of his days were consumed by his one of many knee surgeries. Suddenly the poor brother of the Giants was news. Back in those days the Jets  did not even get that much television coverage , often one had to listen to them on the radio and they played often on Saturday night to not compete with the Giants on Sunday.  All of a sudden , the station in Schenectady WRGB was going to broadcast  their games. People were interested in a team that played then in the old Polo Grounds along with the then lowly METS. They had a new home at Shea Stadium and they had Namath. I a burgeoning 60's wise-ass took to this new guy and the fast paced AFL. Broadway Joe and the sixties were a great fit. It seemed the right fit for me as I progressed through  my teen and early twenties. Oh and Joe leading them to their to the only Superbowl appearance and actually won was an addition narcotic to keep me a fan. The following years have not all ways been kind to a fan of this team. Sometimes damn painful. But I have stuck with them. In retrospect , I think it some of it has been loyalty, But maybe it is youthful hope and ambition that I once felt still flickers within me and stays this course to remind me of the bashful and brashful kid. I watch on waiting for a spark of youthful magic. I suppose we all do in one way or another.