Joe Namath

Namath as a rookie with the Jets in 1965
No. 12
Position:	Quarterback
Personal information
Born:	(1943-05-31) May 31, 1943 (age 81) Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Height:	6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
Weight:	200 lb (91 kg)
Career information
High school:	Beaver Falls (Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania)
College:	Alabama (1961–1964)
NFL draft:	1965 / Round: 1 / Pick: 12
AFL draft:	1965 / Round: 1 / Pick: 1
Career history
New York Jets (1965–1976) Los Angeles Rams (1977)
Career highlights and awards
Super Bowl champion (III) AFL champion (1968) Super Bowl MVP (III) AFL Championship MVP (1968) AFL Most Valuable Player (1968) NFL Comeback Player of the Year (1974) AFL Rookie of the Year (1965) First-team All-AFL (1968) Second-team All-Pro (1972) 3× Second-team All-AFL (1966, 1967, 1969) Pro Bowl (1972) 4× AFL All-Star (1965, 1967–1969) NFL passing yards leader (1972) 2× AFL passing yards leader (1966, 1967) NFL passing touchdowns leader (1972) George Halas Award (1969) AFL All-Time Team New York Jets Ring of Honor New York Jets No. 12 retired National champion (1964) First-team All-SEC (1964) 2× Second-team All-SEC (1962, 1963)
Career AFL/NFL statistics
Passing attempts: 3,762 Passing completions: 1,886 Completion percentage: 50.1% TD–INT: 173–220 Passing yards: 27,663 Passer rating: 65.5
Player stats at PFR
Pro Football Hall of Fame

Joseph William Namath (/ˈneɪməθ/; NAY-məth; born May 31, 1943), nicknamed "Broadway Joe", is an American former football quarterback who played in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons. He spent the majority of his career with the New York Jets. Namath played college football for the Alabama Crimson Tide, where he won the national championship as a senior, and 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, he joined the NFL with the Jets, where he was the league's passing yards and touchdowns leader during the 1972 season. 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 (50 km) northwest of Pittsburgh. He grew up in the Lower End neighborhood of Beaver Falls.^[1] He is the son of Roman Catholic parents, Rose (née Juhász) and János "John Andrew" Namath, a steelworker, both of Hungarian descent.^[2] His Hungarian-born grandfather, András "Andrew" Németh, known as "A.J." to his family and friends, came to Ellis Island on the steamer Pannonia in 1911,^[3]: 1 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, he lived with his mother. He was the youngest of four sons, with an older adopted sister.^[4]

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. Namath 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. He stated that although he was one of several white players on the team, he was the only white starter.^[5] Coached by Larry Bruno at Beaver Falls, Namath's football team won the WPIAL Class AA championship with a 9–0 record in 1960.^[6] Coach Bruno later presented Namath to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton.^[7]

Upon graduation from high school in 1961, he received offers from several Major League Baseball teams, including the Yankees, Indians, Reds, Pirates, and Phillies,^[8] 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.^[9] He 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.^[10][11]

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 his decision to recruit Namath was "the best coaching decision I ever made."^[12]

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,^[13] 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.^[14]

Bryant called Namath "the greatest athlete I ever coached".^[1] 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 in 1983.^[15]

Namath attended college at the height of the civil rights movement (1955–1968) in the Southern United States.^[16]

Namath was eleventh in the voting for the 1964 Heisman Trophy, which was won by quarterback John Huarte of Notre Dame.^[17][18]

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.^[19][20][21]

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.^[22]

When meeting with executives of the Cardinals, Namath's salary request was $200,000 and a new Lincoln Continental. While initially surprised at Namath's 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.^[23] The day after the Orange Bowl, Namath elected to sign with the Jets, under the direction of Sonny Werblin, for a salary of US$427,000 over three years (a pro football record at the time).^[4][24][25] Offensive tackle Sherman Plunkett came up with the nickname "Broadway Joe" in 1965,^[4] following Namath's appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated in July.^[26]

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.^[19] 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.^[27]

He 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 (4,082).^[28] Although Namath was plagued with knee injuries through much of his career and underwent four pioneering knee operations by Dr. James A. Nicholas, he was an AFL All-Star in 1965, 1967, 1968, and 1969. On some occasions, Namath had to have his knee drained at halftime so he could finish a game. Later in life, long after he left football, he underwent knee replacement surgery on both legs.

In the 1968 AFL title game, Namath threw three touchdown passes to lead New York to a 27–23 win 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. He 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.^[29]

Super Bowl III

The high point of Namath's career was his performance in the Jets' 16–7 win 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."^[30] 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."^[31]

Namath backed up his boast, which became legendary.^[32] The Colts' vaunted defense (highlighted by Bubba Smith) 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 and Unitas 376 yards and three 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.^[3]: 346 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.^[33]

The Chicago Winds of the World Football League (WFL) 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 ($100,000 per year for 20 years); 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.^[34]

Los Angeles Rams

After twelve years with the Jets, Namath was waived prior to the 1977 season to facilitate a move to the Los Angeles Rams when a trade could not be worked out. Signing on May 12,^[35][36] Namath hoped to revitalize his career, but knee injuries, a bad hamstring, and the general ravages of 13 years as a quarterback in professional football had taken their toll. After playing well in a 2–1 start, Namath took a beating in a one-point road loss on a cold, windy, and rainy Monday Night Football game against the Chicago Bears, throwing four interceptions and having a fifth nullified by a penalty.^[37][38] He was benched as a starter for the rest of the season (in favor of Pat Haden) and retired at its end.^[39]

Career statistics

Acting career

Building on his brief success as a host on 1969's The Joe Namath Show, Namath transitioned into an acting career. Appearing on stage, starring in several movies, including C.C. and Company with Ann-Margret and William Smith in 1970, on stage in "Picnic" with Donna Mills in 1971 and in a brief 1978 television series, The Waverly Wonders. He guest-starred on numerous television shows, often as himself, including The Love Boat, Married... with Children, Here's Lucy, The Brady Bunch, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, The Flip Wilson Show, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, The Dean Martin Show, The Simpsons, The A-Team, ALF, Kate & Allie, and The John Larroquette Show.^[41] Namath was a candidate to host the 1988 revival of the American game show Family Feud, before the job went to comedian Ray Combs.

Namath appeared in summer stock productions of Damn Yankees, Fiddler on the Roof, and Li'l Abner, and finally legitimized his "Broadway Joe" nickname as a cast replacement in a New York revival of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial in 1983.^[42] He guest hosted The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson several times and also served as a color commentator on NFL broadcasts, including the 1985 season of Monday Night Football and several years with NBC Sports. In September 2012, Namath was honored by the Ride of Fame and a double-decker tour bus was dedicated to him in New York City.^[43] He appeared as himself in the 2013 sports film Underdogs and the 2015 comedy film The Wedding Ringer.

Filmography