NY Jets #45 - Part 4

It's hard to walk around with a name that everyone either associates with the most dread of household inspects or with a joint that has gone nearly past its usability among many hands and mouths. But like most of the blemishes of one's life, you get used to it, especially past the age of 12, when most kids are done pestering you about the obvious things that make a person ugly - your face, your walk, your voice, your name. Then you enter the adult world, where it's different. Grown people make quiet note of the blemishes God gave you, without needing to turn it into a soul-shattering verbal refrain that, as a child, you'd have to steel yourself for on the lunch line, day in and damned day out. Adults save such cruelties for their own private amusements, waiting for just the right moment to bat you back into mortal place.

I'd still rather be an adult. If today someone makes a reference to how I must get high a lot, or to Franz Kafka, or to being the only one who will be able to survive a nuclear attack, I can always say, "Oh. Yeah. Right. God. I've never heard that before."

But what about Tony Stargell, who played in #45 for the Jets from 1990-91? When I was a little boy in Pleasantville, NY, and Tony was 13 and growing up playing football in LaGrange, Georgia, Willie Stargell shared SI's Sportsman of the Year with Terry Bradshaw.

Willie Stargell
(1940-2001)

Willie Stargell was "Pops," the most recognizable baseball player of his day outside of Reggie Jackson and a fine example of a human athlete as well. Willie Stargell's power so obviously came from a frame unenhanced by performance enhancement, that in his near middle age he had a beer-gut. He preferred a good time to a statistical high, and he still won the NL MVP in 1979 at the ripe old age of 39.

I was a Mets fan, but I rooted for the Pirates in the 1979 World Series because they were National League, because they were the underdog, and because they were "Family," with Pops at the head of the table. Grown men of Tony Stargell's age still know who Pops was; he was larger-than-life, but he is gone now, long dead and gone by more years than I can believe. It seems like only yesterday that I was imitating Wilver Stargell's batting stance in my cousin's backyard, trying to capture his strange lilting action of the bat as readied for a pitch. Men of a certain age - my age and Tony Stargell's - know who Pops was. He was exactly the model of what sports isn't now. Sports is not really about fun, and to paraphrase an axiom of Wilver himself, the man yells play ball, not work ball. He doesn't yell "moneyball," either.

It seems awfully trite to say something like that nowadays, but the shift in priorities is infectious throughout our culture. The pay scale for baseball players is based on their statistics. The man who was recently elected to become the new governor of the Pennsylvania Commonwealth is imitating the fat man who governs New Jersey in the belief that public school teacher pay should be linked with the statistical data of student testing. Nothing can remove the love of learning any more than moneyball can ruin a love for baseball; people will still be taught by creative-minded teachers and will also still be watching baseball when these narrow-minded governors are dead and forgotten, save for being mere names on occasional bits of state park property. But both teaching and baseball are a whole lot less fun when they're purely the property of statistical content. And since moneyball became the way of America's Game, Willie Stargell's Pirates haven't been to the postseason, either. His statue stands a lot larger outside their park than Willie Stargell himself once stood, but for men of a certain age - mine and Tony's - that's pretty damned tall.

Tony Stargell
(no apparent relation)

Why must I go on like this? The truth is I actually don't have much to say. Tony Stargell started his career with the New York Jets at defensive back after being drafted by them in 1990. The Jets could have taken Ricky Proehl; they could have taken Neil O'Donnell, Bobby Houston or Anthony Pleasant (all of whom would go on to play for us eventually, anyway); more importantly, they could have taken Larry Centers or maybe even Fred Barnett, though lots of Eagles fans might argue otherwise. Tony Stargell was picked out of Tennessee State and played two seasons with us before going west to Indianapolis. Linebackers stay a while, receivers are needed even when they're not wanted, but the secondary seems so expendable. Tony Stargell is another name gone in and out of our franchise's defensive backfield, and his statistics make no more than a ripple than those belonging to Torin Dorn or Le-Lo Lang, both of whom were also drafted by as defensive backs NFL teams in 1990.

Torin Dorn's a funny name when you say it (didn't his parents say it to themselves beforehand?), though obviously Le-Lo takes the cake. Many men must carry such burdens, and they grow up and out of them. But Tony Stargell probably had to carry the burden of being perpetually asked if he was related to Pops, and when you're an athlete being compared to a legend with your name, you inevitably fall short, regardless of whether or not people understand that you're not related. And no, Tony Stargell was apparently not related to Willie. All of us make mistakes, but when Tony Stargell did for the Jets, the Colts, the Bucs, the Chiefs and the Bears, some smartass in the crowd, on the sidelines or even in zebras probably uttered the phrase, "Sonuvabitch should have stuck to baseball." And that's not fair.

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Corky Tharp #45 is far right.

Thomas "Corky" Tharp was drafted by the LA Rams in 1955 after having a stellar career rushing at the University of Alabama. Five years later, he shows up wearing #45 as defensive back, playing most of the 1960 season for the New York Titans before retiring that year. Above, courtesy of Corbis, you see him in action, to the right, trying to tackle Houston Oilers rookie Billy Cannon. Corky's ride in football, which took him from Alabama to Canada with the Argonauts of Toronto and finally the Titans, is about to come to an end. Billy Cannon's ride in pro football will last another decade, during which he will be turned into an unused tight end for the Raiders and the Chiefs. In the image above, Corky seems already to be shying away from Cannon and the life that football has provided. It's fading time. It will come for Billy, too.

And if you can't tell it from that picture, try the two images below, a before and after. The one on the left is Corky Tharp, the young student who gained just over 2,000 career yards for the Crimson Tide, staring off into a seemingly limitless horizon. The second looks more like After - the smirking, knowing expression of an experienced grown man who has been converted several times over to the most dispensable of positions, playing on an AFL team that can barely break even.

Corky (before)

Corky (after)

Finally, we come to Earlie Thomas, #45 for the Jets from 1970 to 1974. Did he also start his career in the Canadian pipeline? It's an interesting question because apparently his NFL career began with the Jets at the age of 25.

On a humid day at Harvard Stadium in 1970, Earlie Thomas, a rookie out of Colorado State, intercepted a pass by Mike Taliaferro and ran it back for a 36-yard touchdown, giving the Jets a 28-7 third quarter lead. As they have been wont to do in my history with them, the Jets nearly gave away what was left of the game, managing to hold onto a 31-21 win. I find it interesting, by the way, that in 1968 the Patriots played at Fenway but then at Boston College's Alumni Stadium in 1969, and then at Harvard a year later. After that, they became the New England Patriots of Foxboro that we all know and love so well.

Master's or PhD?

Earlie Thomas' interception was just a little more than enough to keep Namath's offense ahead (Joe went 9-for-20 that day). It was am early start to his career; some men are aptly named after all.  Earlie never ran one back again in his entire career. He would pick one more off that season and make four more interceptions his remaining career, ending up in Denver in 1975. Some things come early to those who wait, but then are gone for good.
Some information on him from the 1974 Jets yearbook, apparently Earlie Thomas earned his Master's degree in something related to agriculture, for his dissertation (which speaks to a PhD) "ison aweevil parasite" (sic). At least he's doing some good somewhere, one presumes.

NY Jets #45 - Part 3

First, running back Eddie Hunter #45 may not have been a replacement player, even though he only played one season with the Jets, in the strike year of 1987. He scored two touchdowns that year, but I may have been too drunk or boring at college to have even known about it at the time. All that can be gleaned from the record is that he had a two-year NFL career with the Jets and then the Bucs. Both his touchdowns came on passing plays in his rookie year.

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Speaking of the undergraduate, there are players who operate in the collegiate world like gods - men who are legends to a population at the height of their capacity for enthusiasm. Such is the college star. And the person who makes the best cult recruit is also the biggest and loudest fan in the stands - the college student. I remember having an irrational, deep, cosmic attachment to my college's basketball team while I was there, and I don't even like basketball all that much. I remember seeing our star point guard at a college party and being introduced to him by friends as simply "Money." Something tingled at the base of my neck when I clasped his hand. I remember screaming my lungs out when they won the tournament championship about three years after I graduated from college. Was it the truest happiness a person could feel? I nearly had a mental collapse when my alma mater went into triple overtime in the Elite 8 of the NCAA tournament 12 years ago. Following college sports prepares you for one thing and one thing only - to be a Moonie.

But what eventually happens to these immortal college stars, these cult idols? Tim Tebow scored his first professional touchdown against the Jets, but will he ever be any more than just another star made humble by the unsentimental world of crass professionalism? If the Christian Coalition has anything to do with it, then he will absolutely run for Governor of Florida someday. But think of John Huarte, Pat Sullivan, Brian Dowling, Ed Marinaro (we'll get to him), John Rogan, Pete Beban, Billy Cannon or Gavin Grey. Sure, Tebow can run for President, but what has happened to the rest?

Iacavazzi in a Princeton
Jets uniform

What ever happened to Cosmo Iacavazzi? He graduated from the last undefeated Princeton team in 1964 and was eventually drafted by the Jets for the 1965 season. In the crucial final game of the season against Yale, tied at halftime (Princeton had never been down all season) Iacavazzi then went on score on runs of 39 and 45 yards in the second half. At the moment when his team needed him most, he came through, as the great ones always do. He must have appeared to the Princeton loyal as the most blessed human on Earth, and Princeton ran away with the Ivy Title. He was a runner-up to John Huarte for the Heisman, well ahead of Joe Namath. The Jets then got all three of those guys that year - Iacavazzi, Huarte, and Namath. Huarte never took a snap. Namath changed the course of American sports, and Cosmo Iacavazzi is said to have suited up for two games, without any note of yardage gained.

He must have been thought of as something special by the good people of Topps because here is a 1965 rookie football card as a Jet. He's clearly still wearing his #32 Princeton jersey with the tell-tale Tiger-striped sleeves which have been rendered by the artist into the Jets' green and white. Unlike Tim Tebow, Cosmo Iacavazzi was given a new number as a pro - in this case #45 - with the Jets, starring as nothing more than a backup. The card reveals him metaphorically and literally. He runs toward us out of that unpleasantly yellow background of 1965 Topps, colored a Jet, yet still frozen in his Princeton life.

As the link above shows, he has lived a life of restless pursuits since graduation, including being the mayor of Hillsborough, NJ. That's better than being an orthodontist/forger like Billy Cannon. But is any kind of life good enough for a man who has been the most recognized person on campus?

Jets

Patriots

Jets

Patriots

Speaking of a restless life, what about Otis Smith's, in #45? He is one of my all-time favorites. Otis Smith began his career as rookie free agent with the Philadelphia Eagles at the ripe old age of 26 in 1991. He wore #30 when he began with the Eagles and #23 for the Lions when he retired. Above is a display courtesy of pro-football reference.com, which takes the time to show the numbers that a player wears and also how his uniform evolves, whether playing for one team or for dozens over time. In between the beginning and the end of his career, Smith wore the #45's you see above. From left to right they represent the Jets, the Patriots, the Jets, and then the Patriots again, all between 1995-2002.

The green 45 with the black outline represents the years of Richie Kotite's reign of error, but then Smith was traded mid-season 1996 to Bill Parcells' Super Bowl-bound Patriots, who are represented by the light blue and red 45. The green-outlined 45 represents the point at which Parcells took Otis Smith with him back to the Jets.

The last 45 on the right is for the dark blue and red Patriots of Bill Belichick, who took himself, Otis Smith, and much of my desire to live with him back to Foxboro. It was during Smith's second Super Bowl in New Orleans with the Patriots that he made the most crucial play of the organization's history. Adam Vinatieri's field goal to beat the Rams in the Super Bowl was set up by Otis Smith's interception of a Kurt Warner pass.

Otis in the right place during the
1999 AFC Divisional Playoffs

Otis Smith blew a lot of coverages for the Jets. Somehow I remember that. But he made big plays - I know that, too. I don't recall any of these any more memorably than I do my own college days, or my childhood, or the endless numbered autumn Sundays I have spent staring at the TV over the years, worrying about both the Jets and the working week to come. Otis Smith is seventh on the all-time list of career interceptions for touchdowns with eight, seven of which were with the Jets. It's the most exciting play in football. And the fact that Otis Smith had the potential to bring into being the most explosive change of a game's course meant that he had a special magic that could transcend a Sunday's bland, mundane depression. That's why he's one of my favorites.  I will hear no debate.

NY Jets #45 - Part 2

I remember 1983 as bleak. I remember getting in trouble. I remember being 14 and unable to focus on homework. I just talked to girls, walking around the hallways, hoping to get some attention. I was also on the cross-country team and on my way to a varsity season as a freshman, but I loathed it. Most people approach their day of competition with a zombified dread, the kind #45 Dwayne Crutchfield described in Sports Illustrated as a college senior running back at Iowa State in 1981. You just feel like one of Sartre's characters in No Exit, thinking that this may be the day that you die, or maybe it's not. I would throw up before meets and spend most of my time on the bus thinking that if I didn't die, it might just be the day I crap myself in fear. Literally.

I hate competition. I still pale in the face of it. In cross-country, I competed against myself. As you leave the aural mayhem of the starting line and endure the near panic of the first mile, you enter into a meditative place of solitude with pain. Your adversaries disappear in and around your peripheral, the gentle quiet of the long course becomes your background and you don't pay attention to anything but your own breathing and your constant dialogue with the desire to give up. I ran fast and well, but I know I didn't run competitively, which didn't bother the coach at the time because I was simply a promising young runner. When I quit right before the next year, he was furious. I don't blame him, but I felt liberated from having to endure pain for no other reason other than endure it. I didn't want to win any more than I was afraid to lose. And I am a Jets fan. I wasn't afraid to lose.

If Dwayne Crutchfield had known about losing any more than winning, perhaps he would have been ready for a career that was typically short for the NFL. Observe how often in the SI article it's mentioned that, as a promising draft choice for the following year he had a low "center of gravity." Today a running back needs to be powerful but short, explosive, compact. He needs to be a Honda Accord that drives through walls. Your adversaries do not disappear. They envelope and collapse around you. Or so it certainly seems. The model for such people is still LaDanian Tomlinson, although he is a senior citizen at the position for the Jets. In 1981, Earl Campbell was still the model, with a low center of gravity and huge thighs, which are also a weirdly mentioned attribute in Dwayne Crutchfield, as if he were a piece of livestock.


(The photo comes by way of "Steve K" on UniWatch - the ridiculously, beautifully obsessive website. Steve "was watching some old NFL footage and spotted Jets FB Dwayne Crutchfield wearing a non-standard NOB font." In other words, his name is sewn on with a different typeset than, say, Marvin Powell or Scott Dierking next to him. If you were a uniform geek, you'd know what that mean, too. When I was a kid, I noticed these things. Now I know I am not alone.)


The game chews you up at the core of the line and spits you out. After a promising rookie season where he ran for 577 yards, Dwayne Crutchfield then gained almost an identical amount in 11 games in the middle of 1983 but was immediately traded to Earl Campbell's Houston Oilers. He would have one more year with the Rams. Earl Campbell followed Bum Phillips to New Orleans, where he played little longer, while Houson went to the air with Warren Moon. Because of his low center of gravity, Earl Campbell is today sometimes wheelchair bound at the age of 55. Perhaps Dwayne Crutchfield was fortunate enough to carry the ball much less than Earl. Don't be afraid to lose sometimes. It hurts much less.

And don't be afraid to be wrong. When I first wrote about #39, which was only six numbers and a year and a half ago, I noted that safety Harry Howard played one year for the Jets in 1976, and even then, apparently only one game. You can still find the write-up on the all-time roster here, though it mistakenly offers #45 Louie Giammona's information instead. Harry Howard remains a mystery. The Jets' site, more focused on the exciting Now, has little time to offer anything of interest about the past; the all-time roster is temporarily inaccessible beyond just giving names and numbers. Maybe because they need to clean up the errors. Maybe because they just don't care about the past anymore. Jets aren't losers (the Past). Jets are winners (the Present). No mistakes.

In Louie Giammona's write-up on Harry Howard's page, Lou Holtz is quoted in 1976 as saying, "when you list height, weight, speed, statistics and the intangibles without a name, there is no difference between Louie and Archie Griffin." Guess which player won the Heisman twice? When you think about it, the quote says more about Lou Holtz's one year of professional football coaching than it does about Giammona's potential. Lou Holtz was wrong, but then all of us have intangibles without a name. These may not make us stars, but they will pay off somehow.

(Giammona is here seen playing against the Patriots in a 1976 loss at Shea, which was the last game Dad and I attended while on his season tickets. Though I think I remember it being was too cold for short sleeves, the database tells me that Giammona gained 26 yards that day, while there are no actual statistics for him in 1977, the only other year he was technically a Jet.)

The note about his induction into the Utah State Hall of Fame mentions that after he joined the Philadelphia Eagles in 1978, Giacomma eventually became the Team Captain for an Eagles squad that won more often than they lost and went to the Super Bowl in January 1981. At 5'9", his good luck may simply been those intangibles: he was plucky (that word again) and tough in the way that Dick Vermeil obviously liked (see Mark Wahlberg in Invincible), and he also came from the same town in California as Vermeil. In this sense, there can still can be distinction born from mere attitude and origin. The Jets all-time roster, its full information indefinitely on hold, was wrong about Harry Hamilton, but maybe Lou Holtz was right about Louie Giacomma without really knowing why.

Take a Picture

It's important for any man to remember that when he sends a picture of his own sexual organ to, well, anyone, he's bound to be become a social pariah, but I think it's incumbent upon me to remind no one in particular that Braylon Edwards' DUI drew a mere quarter punishment. And that is wrong.

Was there ever a time when it was OK for man to send a woman a photo of his member? I'm beyond the age and station where it is even appropriate for me to ask a female friend this question (I'm as old as Brett Favre, of course). But I suspect that the answer would be no. A man receiving a comparable photograph from a woman might well be lead to think he's won the lottery, but even the most eager of men might be compelled to wonder whether or not the female in question (whom he knows about as well as Jenn Sterger personally knew Brett Favre in 2008) has been snorting cocaine. My own wife says that she would go to a friend and ask what was wrong with me if I took pictures of my dong and sent them to her. It sounds unfair, but as I'm writing this, I guess it would be bizarre, wouldn't it? "But honey, I'm love crazy?"

But if there was ever time when it was OK, it was only so because a Polaroid picture taken in 1979 could never have been shared among hundreds of millions of people at once, unless its existence went by way of urban legend. I choose 1979 because that was the last time the Jets played Minnesota at home on Monday Night. (I don't think Tommy Kramer sent any Polaroids of his alter ego that year.) I'd also like to take this moment to add something to the record of #37 Tim Moresco, who recovered a fumble in the Jets' 14-7 victory over the Vikings that year. He also set up a Kevin Long touchdown for the Jets against the Cleveland Browns in 1978 by stripping a fumble on a kickoff. I never mentioned that in Moresco's original entry.

How do I know this? I wish I could claim to remember what happened that late December when I was nine and heartbroken, but I can't. I remember watching that Browns game and hearing Spencer Ross and Sam DeLuca on WCBS radio saying how cold it was in Cleveland. But the proliferation of old games on YouTube has become absolutely indispensable for a football dork like me who enjoys, as my wife puts it, "used sports." I mean, look at Norm Snead. Just look at him. He looks like a man who has been pulled from the Franklin Field crowd to fill in for the Eagles at quarterback. For every unwanted dong on the Internet, there's a 1975 Monday Night Football matchup between the Steelers and the Rams. So there's progress.

Finally, it's October in Philadelphia, and for the fourth year in a row, the Phillies are in the playoffs, and everybody in this bipolar city wants to play the Yankees in the World Series. As much as this has been a special series with the Reds, the Phils must hit more than they have been in order to support their extraordinary pitching staff if they're going to beat the Giants. Secondly....no. Just no. What kind of hubris drives a host of fans who normally support a franchise that once let Norm Snead run around in the cold with just his football uniform think it's OK to invoke the Fates to weave something especially bad for them? Why wish for the Yankees? Everyone I speak to here seems to think they're Leonidas' Spartans. If the Jets managed to make it to the Super Bowl this year and were matched against residents of the Grace Presbyterian Village senior center in Dallas and won handily, I would still jump up and down with the same euphoria I would feel if they defeated the Saints. A championship is a championship.

NY Jets #45 - Part 1

There both is a Kern River and a Carson Falls, each located in Southern California, which is utterly unrelated, except by name and general location to Kern Carson, graduate of San Diego State University and running back for both the San Diego Chargers in the early 60's and for the New York Jets in 1965. For the Jets, he wore #45.

He also passed away in 2002. The only other bit of information I found about him is that he was born in 1942 in Hope, Arkansas. So, in the moments of his infant life, did he ever once see the passing carriage of a little boy named Billy Blythe, whose momma later married Roger Clinton of Hot Springs? Who knows? I'm certain that I probably walked the same grocery aisles with my own mother that Debbie Gibson did as a child in Merrick, NY. So, there you are. Brushes with greatness.

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A man named Oliver Celestin must certainly come from New Orleans. The name Oliver has a resonance in the city. His first seasons were as an undrafted free agent at #45 with the Jets, and his best season was with us, with 25 tackles in 2005, which then saw him on his way to Seattle the next year, hot on the heels of the Seahawks' dubious loss to Big Ben in the Super Bowl. Then he played for the Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl two years later. Oliver Celestin has been closer to the big game more often than most New York Jets can ever claim, and yet his career was forced to end with the UFL's New York team, the Sentinels.

That's right. Don't act like you didn't know that New York had a UFL team for nine weeks. They played at Shuart Stadium at Hofstra, where I used to go see the Jets play scrimmages during training camp in the 70's while trying to weasel extra autographs from the likes of Wesley Walker.

You didn't you even know the New York Sentinels existed? Well, me neither. Seriously. Here, I'll show you their uniforms:


Except, this doesn't do you much good, does it? Because after winning nary a game in 2009, the New York Sentinels promptly packed their bags and moved to -

wait for it....

That's right! Hartford! Very good. They are now the Colonials of Hartford, as of this year. And their uniforms look like this:

It's hard to get excited about a team that basically looks like the football equivalent of the Milwaukee Brewers. According to Wikipedia: "Colonials was not one of the four names voters could choose from, but was said to become an 'overwhelming favorite' among the fan suggested names," which means that no one in Hartford cared to vote in the first place. And if the UFL weren't a doomed enterprise, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans everything, imagine for a moment what could have been. Instead of just being a tax write-off, imagine a Lamar Hunt or an Al Davis wiping that corn-fed smile off of Roger Goodell's face, explanding a market that could compete with America's flagship league.

Ah, well. Business as usual. They don't make entrepreneurs like they used to. The Hartford team does not play Oliver Celestin now, but then the Colonials don't play even close to capacity at UConn's Renschler Field, either. The league and its people will be a distant memory in no time, less bloated than the USFL, with uniforms much less cool than than the WFL. So who weeps for Oliver Celestin, with his NFC Championship ring? Not I.

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Were I to travel the short distance from my home in East Falls to Chester, Pennsylvania, I would be near the haunts of Dick Christy #45, a running back whose time and place in our history is as forgotten as the relative blue collar success of Chester itself, whose Ford auto plant closed in 1961, the same year Dick Christy joined the New York Titans. Today Chester is a little piece of rust belt outside of Philadelphia, a region notorious for crime and poverty since the 60's. They have a racetrack there, which is the usual gesture of a hopeless community, although in an act of unique creativity, the Philadelphia Union MLS club chose to build their soccer-only stadium there. And that's cool.

But Dick Christy himself is gone for good. After playing for both the Titans and the Jets (1961, 63) he was then killed on July 8, 1966 in a single auto accident back home in Philadelphia. There is little to clarify anything more than that. What happened?

But when you were once a star for an unlikely ACC championship team like North Carolina State in 1958, the alumni memorializes you accordingly. Though he may have traveled far from home when he attended NC State, Dick Christy chose the Wolfpack because they were the only school that would allow him to play on the squad and marry his Chester sweetheart.

But Dick's not to be confused with Earl Christy, the man who replaced him in #45. My wife wondered somewhat cynically if they simply replaced one Christy at #45 for another. I imagine that Sonny Werblin's budget was more expansive than that. Earl Christy played defensive back for the Jets from 1966-68, and was also a return man. Dick Christy seemed to have been the rough-hewn, straight-jawed boy from an industrial town. Earl Christy, on the other hand, seems like a visitor from outer space. First, he is not to be mistaken for the prolific magazine illustrator. In fact, Earl Christy the Jet has the distinction of playing the proverbial bookend to the nadir and zenith of the Jets' moments against their most hated 1968 rival, the Oakland Raiders.

First, there's the Heidi Game, the extraordinary watershed moment in the history of TV's coverage of professional football. The histrionics of the game itself are well-known: fights, penalties, ejections, then a little girl trapsing through the Alps. We know this already. With the Raiders ahead with 1:05 to go, their kickoff went to Earl Christy (move to 1:25 in the link), who fumbled it at the 10, with the Raiders recovering in the end zone. Raiders 43 Jets 32. This was the nadir.

Then, leap ahead a few weeks later, to Shea Stadium and the AFL Championship against Oakland. After the Raiders scored in the fourth quarter to take the lead at 23-20, Christy takes the kickoff and runs it back 32 yards to set up a Namath pass to Sauer, followed by Namath's wild throw to Don Maynard, which then set up the clinching touchdown. This is what athletes must do. They must shake off the goat. It is what we all must do.

But Earl Christy, Super Bowl champion, is quite an active fellow. He is an apparent spokesman for any and every anti-aging medicinal made from deer antler velvet. Yep. And sure, he gives motivational speeches to Jets fans in Tampa Bay, who appear to be under the big tent for nothing else other than the buffalo wings. But the man is clearly on fire. Are you?

But Earl Christy also promotes Chi Machine International, an apparently international organization geared around, well, the Chi Machine. If it sounds vaguely Scientological, that's because it involves a 110 volt machine, your spinal alignment, and your personal life force energy flow. I will let you, gentle reader, peruse the information and judge for yourself.

But what's most compelling about Earl Christy - the omega of the Heidi Game and the alpha of the drive that put the Jets into the Super Bowl - is what his bio for the Chi Machine International reveals to us. He is apparently an:

"Outstanding athlete, football coach, broadcaster for over 30 years, team member of Harlem Wizards exhibition show basketball team, elementary school teacher of the year, Chief of nine villages in Ghana, motivational speaker and founder of Athletes For Education Association (AFEA)."

Let's see: Harlem Wizards basketball team? Check. A teacher of the year - well, I think that's pretty incredible. And, ah, broadcaster. Sure. Football coach, no surprise there.  And....lessee...he's...

"Chief of nine villages in Ghana."

Really? I mean, wh-...really? How? I mean, I know #54 Wahoo McDaniel was an actual Choctow-Chickasaw Native American, but he isn't even so much as a greeter at the Chocktaw casino in Durant, Oklahoma. Has Earl Christy has been reading too much Heart of Darkness or something? I mean, are the nine villages in Ghana aware that their property taxes go to Earl Christy? I certainly hope so.

Jets at Miami - 1/26 - The Bitching

21 Not-So-Rhetorical Questions masking as complaints (but for the unaccustomed, the answers are listed below):

1) Is a DUI a serious enough offense that a coach with integrity can ban the drunk driver and his passengers for two quarters? Maybe three? Four?

2) Is Rex not quick enough with the red flag? Is it wedged somewhere? What's the problem?

3) How many interference calls that lead to touchdowns will Kyle Wilson be responsible for before someone decides to teach the young man how to cover effectively?

4) Is Darrelle Revis OK with his apparent lack of summer conditioning?

5) Is anyone fooled by the nonsensical Peyton Manning impersonation that Sanchez does at the line that is followed by an ineffective Shonn Greene run up the middle?

6) Does an established NFL team not coached by Any Reid really need to call three timeouts in a minute and a half early in the second quarter?

7) How many yards did Thomas Jones gain for the Chiefs against the Niners this week?

8) Do I need Bob Costas to explain to me why Michael Vick is being given a second chance?

9) Enrique Inglesias is the halftime show choice. This is how we know it's Hispanic Heritage Month (there is no Hispanic History Month, apparently). But I'd rather watch Mad Men, which I'm not watching because of this game. So, my question is, can't I just see that funny chick from the Progressive ads again instead?

10) Aren't the MetroPCS adds vaguely racist?

11) Is my dog going to starting freaking out and barking at nothing in particular at a critical moment that I will miss?

12) Is it hot enough for you?

13) Did Rex Ryan take lessons from my pee wee coach in how to fake injuries to slow the game down?

14) Does "Tony Sporano" sound like "Tony Soprano?"

15) I'm starting to think Revis Island doesn't exist. I know Riker's Island exists. Plaxico Burress lives there.

16) How excited am I to see Danny Woodhead break one out for the Jets in this game?

17) How many expensive, drive-killing penalties has Braylon Edwards acquired in this game?

18) Is Brad Smith a star?

19) If the Jets score, will Matt Slossen be responsible for a holding call?

20) Kendall Lankford = AJ Duhe?

21) Am I happy that Braylon Edwards is playing in this game?



1) Yes, yes, and more yes. Unless it's not important to the league. 2) WTF. Found it in the second half, thank you. 3) Keep counting. It's a long season. 4) One would hope not. 5) I would think not. It's pathetic and embarrassing. 6) HOLY GOD, no!!! OH GOD!! 7) 95 yards. 8) No. 9) She briefly appeared on Mad Men, actually. 10) You be the judge. 11) Yes! The Jets' touchdown to Braylon Edwards. Arf. 12) 83 degrees in Miami during the middle of the second half. 13) No. Coach Sutherland is, I believe, in prison. 14) Yes, and apparently many, many jocular references have been made to this over the past two seasons, almost to the point where you would think it wouldn't be worth mentioning anymore, Al Michaels. 15) That's not a rhetorical question. 16) As excited as you want to be, you schmuck. He scored a monster touchdown for the New England Patriots against the Bills this past week. Just like that. Gone for good. I've been pulling for him to be a star on the Jets for years. Now he works for the unspeakables. 17) Again, not rhetorical. But one so far. Inside the red zone after the blocked punt. Tripping. I wish we had gotten Anquan Boldin. Honestly. 18) Well, in this game, sort of. 19) Apparently. Twenty nine penalties in two and three-quarter games. 20) Unbelievably, very freaking nearly. 21) What am I, a hypocritical idiot? Yes.

And Here I Re-Publish the NY Times: "Jets In Certain Loss Until the Second Half"

by Vince Graylady, Sports Columnist for the New York Times

The unkempt hordes were treated to something akin to a complete victory when the Jets beat the New England Patriots Sunday 28-14. There were smiles of relief on the faces on fans departing the stadium Jets fans are compelled to share with New York's older, more storied franchise. But Serious Questions regarding the injuries to Darrelle Revis, Nick Mangold, Jason Taylor remain, as do concerns over the very existence of a team that a better class of New Yorkers regard as one would the development of a neck goiter.

The New York Jets were very nearly the same team that lost to the Baltimore Ravens last week - unimaginative, incoherent, bloated, loutish, confused, disoriented, and profane - yet somehow, through the mystical works of a universe guided by what appeared to be chance, the defense continued its relentless pressure against Tom Brady in almost the same way that the better-known New York franchise did two Super Bowls ago. Whether or not the Jets' defense would have been distracted by the presence of either of the women with whom Brady has produced children is uncertain. The verdict still remains on the attention span of such a Jets team, and thankfully Bill Belichick presented his detested rival with merely the Patriots' expected lineup. In this sense, one cannot entirely see the Jets' two-touchdown win as a complete victory over a vastly superior Patriots club.

Randy Moss scored his 150th touchdown, a stellar catch made with one hand - gesture that seemed destined to rank among the best of his Hall of Fame career. Meanwhile, the Jets did some things right. They completed passes, their offseason acquisition gained 76 yards on the ground, and the secondary appeared to be in the right places at the right times. That the Patriots did not score the entire second half signified that either the Patriots were doing poorly or that the Jets did well. Jets fans - corpulent, uneducated and rough - may have regarded it as a victory. Less partisan onlookers were prone to scratch it up to an unfortunate stroke of good fortune.

"When Moss got behind Revis to make a one-handed catch for a 34-yard touchdown," wrote George Vescey of this same publication, "the Jets had seemed to be in big trouble in their new home, with their own glib words coming back to haunt them." But even Vescey was forced to agree that the Jets had the game in hand by the fourth quarter. And to do it, "they didn’t need the reality-show language and bluster they exhibited on the television show Hard Knocks....The Jets did not need to make a spectacle of themselves, either on television or in their own locker room," he added, shaking his head in disappointment at the Jets' apparent victory.

The behavior of their coach, their assistants, and players in the presence of Ines Sainz continues to haunt the team. Even avid fans like Martin Roche, whose Jets blog has changed names too many times for the Times to count, has spoken out against the organized harassment of Sainz: "This is the kind of thing that makes me wonder why football itself is of more importance to me than issues of sanitation in the Third World."

The Times spends a great deal on its football coverage itself when its award-winning columnist Nicholas Kristoff is practically earning a Nobel Prize for Peace, and it makes the men who cover the Jets feel a crisp sense of shame that a good showing over the Patriots cannot help quell. In fact, Jets victories only seem to make it worse. The question is not so much whether or not the Jets can sustain their success without Darrelle Revis (a question they were wondering during training camp anyway) but whether or not the success the Jets have will force to compel a reader of the Times to imagine the distinctly unpleasant possibility witnessing a victory parade down Broadway filled with heavy men in Broadway Joe shirts.

Fortunately history tells us that the Jets won't get that far. Nevertheless, Times sources inside the Bloomberg government indicate that the current state of the city's economy would prohibit such a celebration.

Unless, of course, the Yankees repeat.