Namath: A Biography

What I enjoyed the most about Namath by Mark Kriegel was the way the author wove not just the sports play by play aspects of the Namath story, just enough to give a real memory lane feel to the games, but also that sense of the 60s and 70s mood, the sports bars, the Fu Manchu, the swinging Upper Eastside, the competition with Frank Sinatra, the attempts to make it in show biz, and the strange marriage to a woman who seemed to change her first name with the seasons, and the whole alcoholic decline. There are so many stories to Namath and Kriegel moves them along in a fantastically readable way. I just could not put the book down. I ended up actually wishing each section had been much longer but at 441 pages with a significant footnote section obviously Kriegel could not have done more. This is a terrific book.

This is a very interesting book and it takes you through Joe's entire life past his Suzy Kolber interview. Few sports biographies do that. Like Paul Hornung Joe serves as an alter ego for guys who wish they could have had Joe's life in their younger days. I wish that there would have been more pictures of Joe's serious girl friends (there were several), as only Susie Storm & his wife Deborah are pictured in the book. It would have been nice if they were some pictures of where Joe had lived. You always wonder how playboys will adapt to the married life, as they always get married. Paul & Joe lasted longer than most playboys. Joe said that he only wanted to get married once, and wanted to get his running around out of his system before he settled down. Although his drinking was a problem, he proved to be an otherwise excellent husband and outstanding father. His drinking wasn't what caused his divorce. Unfortunately in Deborah Joe married someone who wanted her own life and wanted to have some success in life. When you marry at 21, you haven't had that opportunity and that was a problem. Joe was so smitten with her that he couldn't see that in her personality before they were married. In retrospect it may have been better if Deborah never married or married much later in life after she had achieved some success in her chosen field. She also was in astrology. Deborah was probably too dominating and also wanted to remake or shape Joe's life and that's never good. That didn't seem to bother Joe and wasn't the cause of the divorce either, although it does give you some insight to Deborah's personality. Another interesting side note about Deborah's family is that her brother died or came up missing while he was suspected to be on a drug run. As the author pointed out Joe lived off his past but didn't want to live in his past. Joe was like Joe Dimaggio in that respect. Joe did very well financially in his post playing career.

"Namath" is an outstanding biography by Mark Kriegel, a former New York Daily News sportswriter. I read Mark Kriegel daily for many years beginning in the early 1990's; he later moved to a non-sports column. His background in sports and non-sports, along with the length afforded a book as opposed to a column, have enabled his true talents to shine in the most definitive biography to date of Joe Willie Namath and one of the best sports books in recent years. Kriegel starts off with Namath's Hungarian immigrant grandfather coming ashore at Ellis Island and his grandfather's and father's tough times working in the coal and steel industrial areas of Western Pennsylvania. Joe's close relationship to both his mother and father (they divorced when Joe was still young) is explored throughout the book. His many loves -- the girls he had crushes on to the many sports he excelled at -- also are examined. He was also a famous hustler whose "living on the edge" mentality --whether at a pool hall or going joyriding -- would explain his braggadocio attitude and The Guarantee during Super Bowl III. Namath's respect and admiration for Paul "Bear" Bryant at Alabama had a profound effect on Joe. It was at Alabama that he first hurt the knee that would so negatively impact his playing career with the Jets. One has to see the pictures of Namath throwing airborne -- there are several in the book -- to remember that before he hurt his knee, he had exceptional mobility. He was not a scrambler in the mode of Joe Montana or Steve Young, but his ability to throw and jump gave him additional vision on the field. He missed that ability in the NFL. Joe Namath was taken by the Jets of the old American Football League (AFL). The New York Giants of the NFL secretly wanted him, but Wellington Mara (still running the Giants today) would not be seen bidding against the upstart league and his proxy, the St. Louis Cardinals, were unable to secure Namath. He went to the Jets, then controlled by Sonny Werblin, and signed an outrageous contract calling for $400,000. It saved the Jets. It saved the AFL. And it helped make the NFL the economic powerhouse it is today. The merger with the AFL and the jolt the Super Bowl was given in 1969 when the Jets upset the heavily favored Baltimore Colts are both directly attributable to Joe Namath. Joe Namath called his own plays at QB, as most players at that position did (Tom Landry of the Cowboys was one of the few coaches who did not allow his QB to call his own plays). Today, virtually all coaches or offensive coordinators call the plays for their team. One wonders how much better Namath might have been if he had a coach or coordinator to call the plays, toning down his talent, but allowing for a better overall game for the team. Namath had many 4 and 5 touchdown games -- but he also had games with 6 interceptions. Clearly, he tried to force passes and would have been better off taking what the defense allowed at certai

This book is a welcome gift, not only for those who love Nammath, but for those who have watched Kriegel's muscular talent mature. Neither a puff or a hatchet job, this nuanced portrait reveals a man and a time made for each other. The book is evocative without being sentimental, full of inside nuggets but never reeking of cheap gossip. A fun read and a rich one, too, as tightly wound as a spiral to Don Maynard.