Saturday, October 25, 2008, 12:00 PM EST
[
General]
I was originally going to write about the up coming anniversary of the most important game in NFL history, Super Bowl 3, Jets / Colts but this story, to me, always begins and ends with one man, The man, Joe "Willy" Namath.
My favorite athlete of all time. And why not?
As far as the whole hall of fame debate goes, there shouldn't even be one. And here's why.
1. 4000 yards in a 14 game season, and this changed the way the game was played, no more 3 yards and a cloud of dust and this Namath record in 1967. It took Dan Fouts, a decade later, to duplicate this with an extra 2 games in which to do it.
2. Injuries, They say you don't lose your starting job due to injury (unless your Drew Bledsoe) So why lose a hall of fame nod ? His knee injuries started before he even got to the pros, imagine this guys career had he been healthy.
3. If your going tell me that Lamar Hunt and Al Davis belong due to their efforts with the merger and making the AFL a viable product then Namath goes in as well, he was the biggest star in the game in either league, he may be the biggest super star the sport has ever produced.
4. Super Bowl III , The guarantee, you know how I love guarantees, the great passing in the first half, the great clock management in the second half. Unlike today, Joe called all the plays and never once called a pass play in the 4th, pretty unselfish Id say.
5. He was, when he was in the booth, a great color man, often accused of being to critical of current players. Know what? Don't like it, then play better you losers. He did more for the game of football than most and belongs in the hall, so don't bother to argue, you will only get deleted.
Yup, he's my hero. What self respecting male chauvinist would not idolize this guy? I remember as a youth, seeing him get creamed, not creamed like when Plus Cindy visits SLSHusker, but creamed like Farrah creamed. Come on, the guy dated Ann Margaret, and she was hot. This is CC Rider for god sake. He wore white fur coats on the sideline, how cool was that? He was white shoes before Billy Johnson.
I can forgive him the Suzy Culver incident because I know it wasn't his fault, If the Jets were going to load him up with champagne, they should have supplied him with beer goggles...
If there were one man I would trade lives with, it would be Broadway Joe, why not, I like Johnny Walker and hot woman and would love to throw a perfect 60 yard spiral every time, I'll keep my knees though, because as we all know, back in 64 when Joe rejected the advances of a hippy chic named Volfan69, his knee was gone for good .
Happy 40th anniversary Joe