Joe Namath
Joseph William Namath is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the American Football League and National Football League for 13 seasons, primarily with the New York Jets. Nicknamed "Broadway Joe", he played college football for the Alabama Crimson Tide, receiving first-team All-SEC honors and winning the national championship in 1964. Namath was selected by the Jets first overall in the 1965 AFL draft.
During his five AFL seasons, Namath was a two-time MVP and twice led the league in passing yards, while winning one AFL championship and one Super Bowl. Both victories remain the Jets' only championships. Following the 1970 AFL–NFL merger, Namath joined the NFL with the Jets, earning Pro Bowl and second-team All-Pro honors in 1972 after leading the league in passing yards and passing touchdowns. He played in New York for seven more seasons and spent his final year as a member of the Los Angeles Rams.
Namath cemented his legacy in 1969 when he guaranteed his heavy underdog Jets would win Super Bowl III before defeating the NFL's Baltimore Colts in one of the greatest sports upsets of all time. The Super Bowl victory was the first for an AFL franchise, helping dismiss notions that its teams were inferior to the NFL's and demonstrating they would enter the merger as equals. Namath received Super Bowl MVP honors in the game, while also becoming the first quarterback to win both a college national championship and a major professional championship. He was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985.
Early life
Namath was born and raised in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. He grew up in the Lower End neighborhood of Beaver Falls. Namath is the son of Catholic parents, Rose and János "John Andrew" Namath, a steelworker, both of Hungarian descent. His Hungarian-born grandfather, András "Andrew" Németh, known as "A.J." to his family and friends, came to Ellis Island on the steamer in 1911, and worked in the coal and steel industries of the Greater Pittsburgh area.While growing up, Namath was close to both of his parents, who eventually divorced. Following his parents' divorce, Namath lived with his mother. He was the youngest of four sons, with an older adopted sister.
Namath excelled in all sports at Beaver Falls High School and was a standout quarterback in football, guard in basketball, and outfielder in baseball. In an age when dunks were uncommon in high school basketball, Namath regularly dunked in games. He later clarified a story about being the only white player on his high school basketball team on The James Brown Show in 2018, where he was the guest. Namath stated that although he was one of several white players on the team, he was the only white starter. Coached by Larry Bruno at Beaver Falls, Namath's football team won the WPIAL Class AA championship with a 9–0 record in 1960. Coach Bruno later presented Namath to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton.
Upon graduation from high school in 1961, Namath received offers from several Major League Baseball teams, including the Yankees, Indians, Reds, Pirates, and Phillies, but football prevailed. Namath told interviewers that he wanted to sign with the Pirates and play baseball like his idol, Roberto Clemente, but elected to play football because his mother wanted him to get a college education. Namath enrolled at the University of Alabama, but left before graduating in order to pursue a career in professional football. However, a college degree was finally conferred on Namath at age 64, after he completed an external-program Bachelor of Arts degree in interdisciplinary studies at the University of Alabama in 2007.
Namath had many offers from Division I college football programs, including Penn State, Ohio State, Alabama, and Notre Dame, but initially decided upon the University of Maryland after being heavily recruited by Maryland assistant coach Roland Arrigoni. He was rejected by Maryland because his college-board scores were just below the school's requirements. After ample recruiting by Coach Paul 'Bear' Bryant, Namath accepted a full scholarship to attend Alabama. Bryant stated that his decision to recruit Namath was "the best coaching decision I ever made."
College football career
Between 1962 and 1964, Namath quarterbacked the Alabama Crimson Tide program under Bryant and his offensive coordinator, Howard Schnellenberger. A year after being suspended for the final two games of the regular season, Namath led the Tide to a national championship in 1964. During his time at the University of Alabama, Namath led the team to a 29–4 record over three seasons.Bryant called Namath "the greatest athlete I ever coached". When Namath was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985, he teared up during his induction speech upon mentioning Bryant, who had died of a heart attack two years prior.
Namath attended college at the height of the civil rights movement in the Southern United States.
Namath was eleventh in the voting for the 1964 Heisman Trophy, which was won by quarterback John Huarte of Notre Dame.
Statistics
Professional football career
In 1964, despite suffering a nagging knee injury in the fourth game of his senior year at Alabama, Namath limped through the undefeated regular season to the Orange Bowl. The cartilage damage to Namath's right knee later designated him class 4-F for the military draft, a deferment from service during the Vietnam War.In late 1964, the then still separate NFL and upstart AFL were at the height of their bidding war, and held their respective drafts on the same day, November 28. Namath was a first-round draft selection by both leagues: the St. Louis Cardinals selected him 12th overall in the 1965 NFL draft, while the Jets made him the first overall pick in the AFL draft.
When meeting with executives of the Cardinals, Namath's salary request was $200,000 and a new Lincoln Continental. While initially surprised at his demands, the Cardinals told Namath they would agree to his terms only if he would sign before the Orange Bowl, which would have made Namath ineligible to play in the game. The day after the Orange Bowl, he elected to sign with the Jets, under the direction of Sonny Werblin, for a salary of US$427,000 over three years. Offensive tackle Sherman Plunkett came up with the nickname "Broadway Joe" in 1965, following Namath's appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated in July. Namath would eventually be on the cover of Sports Illustrated 22 times.
New York Jets
In Namath's rookie season the 1965 Jets were winless in their first six games with him splitting time with second-year quarterback Mike Taliaferro. With Namath starting full-time they won five of the last eight of a fourteen-game season and Namath was named the AFL Rookie of the year.Namath became the first professional quarterback to pass for 4,000 yards in a season when he threw for 4,007 yards during a 14-game season in 1967, a record broken by Dan Fouts in a 16-game season in 1979. Although Namath was plagued with knee injuries through much of his career and underwent four pioneering knee operations by Dr. James A. Nicholas, Namath was an AFL All-Star in 1965, 1967, 1968, and 1969. On some occasions, he had to have his knee drained at halftime so he could finish a game. Later in life, long after leaving football, Namath underwent knee replacement surgery on both legs.
In the 1968 AFL title game, Namath threw three touchdowns to lead New York to a 27–23 victory over the defending AFL champion Oakland Raiders. His performance in the 1968 season earned him the Hickok Belt as top professional athlete of the year. Namath was an AFC–NFC Pro Bowler in 1972, is a member of the Jets' and the American Football League's All-Time Team, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1985.
In 1967, Namath led the AFL in yards per passing attempt, and repeated this again in the NFL in 1972, making him the only player in history to lead both leagues in yards per passing attempt in a season.
Super Bowl III
The high point of Namath's career was his performance in the Jets' 16–7 victory over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III in January 1969, shortly before the AFL–NFL merger. The first two interleague championship games had resulted in blowout victories for the NFL's Green Bay Packers, and sports writers from NFL cities insisted the AFL would take several more years to be truly competitive. The 1968 Colts were touted as "the greatest football team in history", and former NFL star and Atlanta Falcons head coach Norm Van Brocklin ridiculed the AFL before the game, saying "I'll tell you what I think about Joe Namath on Sunday night—after he has played his first pro game." Three days before the game, Namath was tired of addressing the issue in the press, and he responded to a heckler at a sports banquet in Miami with the line: "We're going to win the game. I guarantee it."Namath backed up his boast, which became legendary. The Colts' vaunted defense was unable to contain either the Jets' running or passing game, while the ineffective offense gave up four interceptions to the Jets. Namath was the Super Bowl MVP, completing eight passes to George Sauer Jr. alone for 133 yards. The win made him the first quarterback to start and win a national championship game in college, a major professional league championship, and a Super Bowl.
The Jets' win gave the AFL instant legitimacy even to skeptics. When he was asked by reporters after the game whether the Colts' defense was the "toughest he had ever faced", Namath responded, "That would be the Buffalo Bills' defense." The AFL-worst Bills had intercepted Namath five times, three for touchdowns, in their only win in 1968 in late September.
Later career with the Jets
After not missing a single game because of injury in his first five years in the league, Namath played in just 28 of 58 possible games between 1970 and 1973 because of various injuries. After winning division championships in 1968 and 1969, the Jets struggled to records of 4–10, 6–8, 7–7, and 4–10. His most memorable moment in those four seasons came on September 24, 1972, when he and his boyhood idol Johnny Unitas combined for 872 passing yards in Baltimore. Namath threw for 496 yards and six touchdowns on only 15 completions and Unitas 376 yards and three touchdowns in a 44–34 New York victory over the Colts, its first against Baltimore since Super Bowl III. The game is considered by many NFL experts to be the finest display of passing in a single game in league history. Another notable moment was in 1970, when the head of ABC's televised sports, Roone Arledge, made sure that Monday Night Football's inaugural game on September 21, featured Namath. The Jets met the Cleveland Browns in Cleveland Municipal Stadium in front of both a record crowd of 85,703 and a huge television audience. However, the Jets set a team record for penalties and lost on a late Namath interception.The Chicago Winds of the World Football League made an overture to Namath prior to the start of its 1975 season. First, they designed their uniforms nearly identically to that of the Jets, dropping red and going with green and white, to allow Namath to continue marketing his number 12 jersey in Jets colors. Then they offered Namath a contract worth $600,000 a year for three years; a $2 million annuity ; a $500,000 signing bonus; and terms for Namath's eventual ownership of a WFL franchise. The WFL's television provider, TVS Television Network, insisted on the Winds signing Namath to continue broadcasts. Upon this development, Namath, in turn, requested the lofty sum of 15 percent of the entire league's television revenue, which was rejected by the league. Without a national television deal, the WFL instead opted to fold a month later.