On Sunday, Jan. 12, 1969, I was making so much noise by myself in the living room that my mother asked what I was watching.
“The Super Bowl,” I said.
“I thought the bowls were over,” she said.
Until that day many fans thought the Rose and Orange capped off the bowl season. I hadn’t planned to watch all of pro football’s title game, not with Baltimore favored by almost 20 over these AFL refugees. But the quarterback in the white cleats with the sideburns and .44 Magnum trigger connected with the rebel locked inside me the way Mick Jagger and Sean Connery had. Here was “Satisfaction” meets “Goldfinger.”
You could argue the Stones and Beatles did as much for “The Ed Sullivan Show” as it did for them. Joe Namath was about to turn a game with a name as hokey as it was presumptuous into a media event that has become a national party holiday.
This year the Super Bowl itself is a bigger star than anyone playing in it. This Baltimore-New York matchup offers two fairly faceless teams that “get no respect.” But this newspaper will still send eight writers to cover it for a week, I’ll be attending my XXVIth straight and my mother wouldn’t miss it.
It all started when Namath put the Roman numeral and Roman spectacle in the Super Bowl. He guaranteed victory, backed it up 16-7 and trotted off wagging his index finger at skeptics.
I soon bought the first and last poster for my bedroom wall. I was 17 and white-shoed No. 12 was hotter than my white Camaro SS 350. I was just as captivated by Muhammad Ali’s defiant dominance, but I couldn’t identify.
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Here was a white guy who played for Bear Bryant scoffing at everything our backward-thinking coaches taught us. Forget salt tablets, high-tops, side-straddle hops. Behold the first rock-star athlete–football’s free-loving, dope-smoking embodiment of the ’60s.
I didn’t dare do what Broadway Joe did. I was still too afraid of my teachers and coaches, of licks and stair-laps. But I lived vicariously.
A year later I was as fascinated by Namath’s book as I had been by Jim Bouton’s myth-shattering “Ball Four.” The title of Namath’s, as told to Dick Schaap, was inspired by Namath saying he couldn’t wait till tomorrow. Why, Schaap asked, taking the bait.
“‘Cause I get better looking every day,” said Fu Manchued Joe.
Now Schaap has collaborated with himself on an equally engrossing book. It details the days (and nights) he shared with Namath, Ali and many others who shaped sports and sportswriting. In “Flashing Before My Eyes,” Schaap reveals: “Not long after the Jets won Super Bowl III, Namath came to my house for dinner, lay down on my living room floor, lit a joint, and blew the smoke into the mouth of my dog, a collie named Max.”
Joe Namath, American original.
I had the privilege of getting to know him only in his final season, with the Rams in L.A., when knee surgeries had robbed us of his prime. I found him big-hearted and sad-souled. Jagger fame and Connery fortune had left him unfulfilled. A day after a playoff loss, Namath agreed to let me break his retirement story.
As my L.A. Times editor cleared the Page 1 decks, I interviewed Namath at his favorite fern bar. My taste for alcohol had been killed by growing up with alcoholic parents. But when Namath insisted I order something, I tried red wine.
I sipped politely–and obliviously–as I took notes for nearly two hours. Namath’s personal waitress instantly refilled my glass. I made it halfway through a third before realizing deadline was upon me.
I thanked Namath, stood to leave, took one step and was shocked to feel myself falling into a table of four. Namath, as embarrassed as I was, helped me up and advised I call a cab.
Instead I called my editor and said, “You won’t believe this, but I’m drunk.” He was too amused to get angry. We held the story a day. It kept. True to his word, Namath told only me.
I’ve kept up with Namath through my friend Schaap. He was as amazed when Namath settled happily into fatherhood–“He’s so dull now”–as he was disappointed two years ago when Namath’s wife left him, taking his daughters. From anti-hero to tragic hero.
If it’s any consolation, Joe, I’ll think of you and what you wrought while I’m in Tampa. It’s an honor to say I got drunk only once in my life, with the white-shoed quarterback on the only poster I ever bought.