Wishing Upon a FavreThe Jets’ new quarterback is not just a football player; he’s a cultural icon, a major celebrity. But he’s not going to make us forget Joe Namath.
It has been 32 years since Joe Namath last played quarterback for the New York Jets, and the city has yet to fully recover. Namath, more than Babe Ruth, Reggie Jackson, or Derek Jeter, set the psychic parameters we dream of in our New York athletes. Sure, everyone remembers the Super Bowl guarantee, but Joe Namath truly shone because he appealed to New Yorkers, with whom he resonated as a counterculture figure out promoting the virtues of random, anonymous sex, facial hair, and a stiff Scotch. It’s how Namath could say things like “I like my Johnnie Walker Red and my women blonde” and still end up on Nixon’s enemies list. He was a superstar, but, more important, he was a New York superstar. No one since has come close
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