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Forever Broadway Joe

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By KAREN CROUSE

Published: August 25, 2005

RIVERHEAD, N.Y., Aug. 18 - Joe Namath is behind the wheel of a golf cart at a charity tournament when a stranger approaches and, in a tone one might use with old friends, says, "Joe, you helped me buy my first car."

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The Associated Press

Quarterback Joe Namath guaranteed that the Jets, a heavy underdog, would beat Baltimore in Super Bowl III.

The Associated Press

Namath on the sideline in 1971 in his full-length fur coat. A generation of Jets fans remain enthralled by his exploits, on and off the field.

The words tumble out of Ed Galvin, who would later admit that he had waited a long time to tell Namath his story. Galvin was 16 years old and living on Long Island in January 1969 when Namath guaranteed a Jets victory in Super Bowl III against the heavily favored Baltimore Colts.

Galvin, emboldened by Namath's bravado, bet $250 - all the money he had - on the Jets to win. After the Jets' 16-7 victory, Galvin explains, he used his earnings to buy an Austin Healy Sprite.

Namath thanks Galvin for sharing and shakes his hand. Galvin returns to his playing partners and reports: "I told him about the car story. He got a kick out of it."

This is how it goes whenever Namath sets foot in public - strangers setting him back on his heels with their stories. It can be at once a compliment and a curse to be a hero to the courageous, a buoy to the hopeful, a yellowed snapshot to the nostalgic. Namath cannot change the fact that he affects people the way a Sinatra song does, tapping into a wellspring of memories and emotions.

Thirty-six years have gone by since he guaranteed a victory in the Super Bowl, then delivered it. Namath outgrew his Broadway Joe image a long time ago. Today he is seeking his college degree, striving to rear two kind, caring, confident daughters, struggling to be a holier, humbler person and mostly staying clear of the spotlight, which he neither needs for financial subsistence nor craves.

What Broadway Joe really yearns to be is your average Joe. But whenever he steps out in his capacity as an ambassador of the Jets or to help one charity or another, an adoring public will not let him. It has locked him in a time capsule, his image as a cocksure quarterback with crumbling knees petrified for posterity.

"The reality of it, excuse me, is when you're in the public they already have a perception of you," Namath says. "And that can be a little awkward."

At 8:15 on a sunny August morning, Namath, who has dined at the White House as a guest of President Ronald Reagan, is sipping coffee out of a Styrofoam cup in the lobby of a Best Western.

Namath, 62, is in town for a March of Dimes fund-raiser that consists of an 18-hole golf tournament at Cherry Creek Golf Links, then a cocktail reception and dinner. Brooks Thomas, one of the organizers of the event, said he planned to reserve a room for Namath at a luxury hotel in the area. When he called Namath to make the arrangements, Namath said, "Where's everyone else staying?" When Thomas told him, Namath said: "That's fine. Put me there, too."

Namath shows up a few minutes early for an interview wearing dark blue shorts, a baby blue polo shirt with white horizontal stripes, a deep tan and worry lines.

The elder of his two daughters, Jessica, 19, is going through sorority rush at the University of Alabama, where her father starred on the football field four decades ago. His other daughter, Olivia, 14, whom he will be visiting in a few days, is in Los Angeles with her mother, Tatiana, Namath's ex-wife.

"Twelve to 17, oh man, those are tough years," he says, his voice as rich as an Irish tenor's. "Somewhere in there, it just becomes almost like they're not realistic, rational."

He laughs. "That's O.K. The main thing is learning to be patient, continuing to listen and not just hear. And understanding that reasonable doesn't matter during those years."

Namath has Jessica to thank for his return to Tuscaloosa, Ala. - and not only to visit her. "Daddy," Jessica said one day, "just think, I'm going to be the family's first college graduate."

Namath's instinctive response was, "You want to bet?"

Spurred by Jessica's comments and empowered by a conversation he had in August 2003 with the 51-year-old golfer Jerry Pate, who completed his degree in 2001 through Alabama's external degree program, Namath returned to college in the fall of 2003.

"The end of the tunnel, there's a light there," Namath says, adding that the only thing that stands between him and an undergraduate degree in education is his senior paper.

"I work on it in the evenings mostly - whenever I'm home," he says. "When I'm traveling, I usually carry a pen and a piece of paper for if I get a thought that I think is pertinent."

Great to see Joe is doing well and turning around his life - family is most important thing to him

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I did better then 250..I was working for Gruman

Aircraft in 69! And I bet co workers the Jets

would Win flat out no points but I wanted 10-1

when they won! It was a 18 point spread and

everyone though I was Nuts! I stood to lose

$1,075 if they lost.

Long story short I bought a New Vette

with the winnings because my old one

didn't have a radio because I ripped

it out when the Jets lost the Heidi

Game!! :mrgreen:

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I did better then 250..I was working for Gruman

Aircraft in 69! And I bet co workers the Jets

would Win flat out no points but I wanted 10-1

when they won! It was a 18 point spread and

everyone though I was Nuts! I stood to lose

$1,075 if they lost.

Long story short I bought a New Vette

with the winnings because my old one

didn't have a radio because I ripped

it out when the Jets lost the Heidi

Game!! :mrgreen:

Some great stories like your's Savage- those type of odds are great when you can hit the big one.

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I did better then 250..I was working for Gruman

Aircraft in 69! And I bet co workers the Jets

would Win flat out no points but I wanted 10-1

when they won! It was a 18 point spread and

everyone though I was Nuts! I stood to lose

$1,075 if they lost.

Long story short I bought a New Vette

with the winnings because my old one

didn't have a radio because I ripped

it out when the Jets lost the Heidi

Game!! :mrgreen:

Hey, I read the same story somewhere wlse

Where could that have been?? :wink:

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