It was the universal opinion of all that he was certainly born to be hanged.
—Henry Fielding, Tom Jones
HANG young Tom? There were those in Fielding's novel who smugly foresaw that amorous vagabond dangling from the highest scaffold at Tyburn gallows. Ah, but how soft women would have wept, and what praises bold men would have sung of his deeds.
No one has ever seriously suggested that a 20th century counterpart of Tom, Quarterback Joe Willie Namath, should suffer such a fate. But he has always been the same kind of rococo rascal that Jones was. As a child Joe Willie was, by his own cheerful confession, an occasional thief and vandal. In his youth he ignored his studies for the pursuit of pigskin and other cutaneous diversions. In setting a career for himself as a professional quarterback, Joe snubbed the St. Louis Cardinals of the older National Football League in favor of the New York Jets of the lowly American Football League—for a record bonus of $427,000.
Even then he did not play by the rules. His hair was too long. His clothes were too loud. His lip was too loose. There were wild tales of girls and booze, of riotous predawn odysseys through Manhattan saloons. There were even darker stories of gambling associations. Joe Namath, libertine and profligate. What good would come of such a rogue?
Merciless. What good indeed? At 29, after six turbulent, injurious seasons, Joe Namath has established himself as the pre-eminent quarterback in professional football today. Playing on a pair of frangible knees, Namath—after the 27-17 win by the Miami Dolphins over the Jets this week—had passed for a career total of 116 touchdowns and more than 18,000 yds.
Even more significant are the changes that Namath is signally responsible for working on the structure of pro football. It was the purse-draining price war for top draft choices like Namath that led to the merger of the A.F.L. and N.F.L. in 1966. It was also Namath who bluntly announced to a disbelieving sports world that the Jets would beat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in the 1969 Super Bowl, then led his team to a stunning 16-7 upset that gave the A.F.L. parity with the N.F.L.
Namath sat out most of the past two seasons with knee injuries. That did not stop him from winning an estimated two-year, $500,000 contract from the Jets management. At the beginning of the 1972 season he set about earning it.