Joe Namath didn’t get his first taste of
football playoff glory until the 1963 Orange Bowl when he was a
sophomore quarterback at the University of Alabama and helped the
Crimson Tide whip Oklahoma, 19-0. He missed out as a Beaver Falls
High School senior in 1960 because the Tigers were the only
unbeaten Class AA football team in the WPIAL and were awarded the
title without a playoff game. As a junior at Alabama, Joe passed for
765 yards and rushed for 201, and in his senior year led Alabama to
another Orange Bowl game, only to lose to Texas. Then came his
famous $400,000 long term contract with the New York Jets, the
largest ever given to a pro gridder up to that time. He earned his
pay by becoming the 1965 American Football League Rookie of the Year
with 2220 yards passing for eighteen touchdowns. In 1966 Namath
upped his statistics to 3379 passing yards with nineteen touchdowns,
then in 1967 became the first pro quarterback to pass for more
than 4,000 yards in a season by hitting for 4007 yards and 26
touchdowns (which wiped out
Babe Parilli’s mark of 3465 yards with
the Patriots). Namath reached his peak by predicting a Jets victory
over the mighty Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III in 1969 and
delivering with a 16-7 triumph. Injuries hampered him from then
until the end of his career with the Los Angeles Rams in 1977. Joe
was inducted into the
Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985.
Joe Namath didn’t get his first taste of
football playoff glory until the 1963 Orange Bowl when he was a
sophomore quarterback at the University of Alabama and helped the
Crimson Tide whip Oklahoma, 19-0. He missed out as a Beaver Falls
High School senior in 1960 because the Tigers were the only
unbeaten Class AA football team in the WPIAL and were awarded the
title without a playoff game. As a junior at Alabama, Joe passed for
765 yards and rushed for 201, and in his senior year led Alabama to
another Orange Bowl game, only to lose to Texas. Then came his
famous $400,000 long term contract with the New York Jets, the
largest ever given to a pro gridder up to that time. He earned his
pay by becoming the 1965 American Football League Rookie of the Year
with 2220 yards passing for eighteen touchdowns. In 1966 Namath
upped his statistics to 3379 passing yards with nineteen touchdowns,
then in 1967 became the first pro quarterback to pass for more
than 4,000 yards in a season by hitting for 4007 yards and 26
touchdowns (which wiped out