http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/story/214090p-184366c.html
On Broadway BY CHRISTIAN RED DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER Wednesday, July 21st, 2004 The aura never faded. It's been more than three decades since "The Guarantee." More than 30 years since cameras caught the back of the white and green No. 12 jersey leaving the Orange Bowl field, right index finger pointing to the sky. A generation since Joe Namath wore mink coats, had Broadway tacked to his name and owned the back page of New York's sports sections. Even as the new biography "Namath" - written by former Daily News columnist Mark Kriegel and set to hit bookstores Aug. 23 - casts light on some of the Hall of Fame quarterback's recent struggles with fame, divorce, alcoholism and the fallout from his flamboyant lifestyle, fans are likely to revive their adoration of Broadway Joe. "I think the same people that idolized him and made him an icon when he was an icon will continue to do that," says veteran Miami Herald columnist Edwin Pope, who was one of the reporters covering Super Bowl III when Namath made his famous guarantee of a Jets victory over the heavily favored Colts. "They have great loyalties unless they're absolutely betrayed." Pope predicted the Jets would get crushed 42-7 on that Sunday in January of 1969, and says that even though Namath is "not the swashbuckler that he once was" during his Jets heyday, he forever solidified his legacy by backing up that promise with the 16-7 upset of Baltimore. "Namath would have been famous anyway," Pope says. "But that guarantee turned him into a fairly lasting icon. He lived a long time on it." Now 61, Namath has had his share of recent PR disasters - most notably last Dec. 20 during a Jets-Patriots game at the Meadowlands. Namath, clearly intoxicated, told ESPN sideline reporter Suzy Kolber, "I want to kiss you," as she interviewed him about the state of the Jets on national television. The Kolber episode is one of several embarrassing incidents chronicled in "Namath," before the former Jets great publicly apologized this past January and vowed to get help. John Schmitt, the Jets' center from 1964-73, told the Daily News yesterday that Namath has indeed carried out that promise and is doing "great" health-wise. According to Schmitt, Namath is getting treatment near his Jupiter, Fla., home. "His first day without drink was Jan. 12," says Schmitt. "He (Namath) says, 'Would you believe that Schmitty? That's the date of our Super Bowl.' . . . He's so proud of being where he is. He looks great." And Schmitt says that few athletes will ever cast as big a shadow over New York as Namath. "The only guy like him was Joe DiMaggio," Schmitt says. "The warmth and charisma that (Namath) has - they all love him. When you say Namath, it's still magic to this day." "Namath was anti-establishment. And a playboy. "He was the heartthrob of every young girl and every old girl in the country," Schmitt says. Adds WPIX sports anchor Sal Marchiano, who was a young reporter with WCBS when he covered Namath's Super Bowl heroics, and makes several notable appearances in Kriegel's book: "Very few people can walk into a room and stop it. All you have to do is say, 'Namath.' You don't need a first name." The book does not shy away from Namath's flamboyant lifestyle - everything from his llama rugs and mirrors on his apartment ceiling to his numerous girlfriends, FBI dossier and part ownership of Bachelors III night club. Marchiano recalls that Namath's famous Upper East Side apartment, rented with teammate Ray Abruzzese, was designed with its own swimming pool in the living room - unbeknownst to the other tenants in the building. "It was nuts," Marchiano says. "I mean they had this contractor from Queens come in and install this pool - they could have been kicked out." That potential slap on the wrist paled in comparison with some of Namath's other entanglements: Kriegel reports that Bachelors III tied Namath to some reputed mob figures; FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had a Namath dossier in the FBI files; Namath even roiled President Richard Nixon with his maverick ways - he was the only athlete to land on the President's "enemies list" that included Gregory Peck and Jane Fonda. The wild living eventually came to a close when Namath finally tied the knot with Deborah Mays in 1984. It was only after Mays left Namath and the couple divorced after 15 years of marriage that Namath regressed to the heavy drinking that permeated his entire adult life. "Of all the people you would not have thought would have been ditched by a woman, Joe would have been No. 1," says Pope. "He was a big sex symbol and she (Mays) runs off and leaves him. I was horrified. That thing just crushed him." But Pope also thinks that Namath has the character to rebound from any setback. He recalls how the quarterback once glowered at him on a golf course a month after the '69 Super Bowl win because Pope had so wrongly predicted the game's outcome. "He said, '42-7,' and spit at my feet," Pope says. "But about a year ago, he came up to me at a Dolphins game, gave me a big hug like all was forgotten. He even said, 'I've forgotten what I was even mad at you about.' " Joe's wild ride, from steel belt to Big Apple "Namath," a meticulously researched new book by Mark Kriegel, chronicles the quarterback's days as a can't-miss high school prospect growing up in a broken home in Western Pennsylvania's steel belt, to the glory years under father figure Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama, to record bonus baby in the fledgling AFL's New York franchise. Joe Namath became the toast of the world's media capital just as football and television became twin American obsessions. He reaped all the glory that the game and the city offered, and then suffered the slow and public decline of an aging superstar. "Namath" has already been praised by such noted sports biographers as Richard Ben Cramer (Joe DiMaggio), Leigh Montville (Ted Williams), and Nick Tosches (Sonny Liston). Publishers Weekly hailed the book as a "landmark portrait of the 1960s icon, and a story of modern America." Published by Viking, "Namath" will be excerpted in the Daily News in August. ______________________________________________________ RollTideFan - The University of Alabama Athletics Discussion List "Welcome to RollTideFan! Wear a cup!" To join or leave the list or to make changes to your subscription visit http://listinfo.rolltidefan.net
