Channeling Broadway Joe

Kickoff to Super Bowl XLIV is less than two hours away, so this will be a short post. And it will be about football, so readers who aren't football fans can skip down to more substantial fare about Haiti or the virtues of a liberal arts education. See you tomorrow!

Back to the game...

The Colts are favored today and it's easy to see why. Their quarterback, Peyton Manning, is the best in the business, and possibly one of the best quarterbacks in pro football history. He's a great passer and a team leader; but what he does best, I think, is read defenses. Sometimes it may take him half the game to figure out exactly what an opposing defense is up to, but by the fourth quarter, Manning usually owns the field.

The Colts have lots of die-hard fans, but the New Orleans Saints are probably the emotional favorites tonight. They've never made it to the Super Bowl, and they carry the hopes and dreams of the Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast on their broad backs.

The Saints' quarterback, Drew Brees, has gotten less attention in the run-up to the big game because of the huge focus on Manning. But a Times profile of Brees on Friday showed the younger, shorter quarterback to be Manning's equal in one of the key qualities of all successful athletes: competitiveness. When he's not on the football field, Greg Bishop wrote, Brees plays almost every sport you can think of, and he plays to win. "Brees wants to win at bowling, at board games, at bow fishing. He wants to win not for humanity, or for New Orleans, or for his foundation. He wants to win because he is an athlete, and that's what athletes do."

I can't remember a year when Super Bowl analysts haven't brought up the legendary victory of Joe Namath and the Jets in Super Bowl III (which football fans know was actually the first AFL - NFL national championship to ever be called a "Super Bowl," but that's irrelevant), so why stop now? As all sports fans know, Namath, young and cocky, led his underdog Jets to victory over the awesome and fearsome Baltimore Colts in 1969, a win that ranked with Cassius Clay's (Mohamed Ali's) heavyweight boxing victory over Sonny Liston five years earlier as one of the greatest upsets in sports history.

What many people forget is that the Colts actually did a pretty good job of shutting down Namath's passing attack that day. He completed only 17 or 28 for 206 yards and no touchdowns. In fact, he's the only quarterback ever to be chosen as the game's MVP without having completed a touchdown pass. And if you look at the stats, as you can tell I've done for this post, the Jets and Colts were pretty even in almost every category (passing yardage, rushing yardage, completions, sacks, etc.). The Jets won decisively, however, because on that day they had, far and away, a more competitive attitude. Their brash young quarterback said he was going to lead his team to victory, and he did.

Years later, long after Super Bowl III, I was working in NBC's Miami Bureau when another phenomenal young quarterback made his NFL debut. The Dolphins' Dan Marino had a rifle-shot throwing arm and some fleet receivers, and he managed to break most of the league's passing records in his rookie year. Nightly News didn't do many sports stories, but they agreed to take a profile piece on young Marino. Our video crew filmed Marino in action from the sidelines -- great fun -- and I got to interview him and his brilliant coach, Don Shula.

But the interview I remember most fondly from that story was the one we did with Joe Namath, living comfortably in retirement in a condo in Fort Lauderdale. Joe -- and his wife -- could not have been more gracious and hospitable. The focus of our story was on the new kid, not the legend, but Joe didn't seem even slightly put out. He told us he'd watched almost every Dolphins game that season and he was generous in his praise for Marino's talents.

After we'd wrapped up the interview and were packing our gear to leave, I asked Joe if I could ask a big favor. "Do you think I could try on your Super Bowl ring?"

"Sure," he said, with his 1000 megawatt Namath smile. I can report that Joe's ring was big, and heavy, and loose on my finger. And that it felt... great.

Almost game time. Gotta go. My prediction? An upset victory by the Saints. I'm going with my heart.