The Many Numbers Of Joe Willie Namath

Good morning, everyone. I’d like to welcome back our friend and colleague Jimmy Corcoran, who has a nice feature on good old Number 12 from the good old New York Jets…

I mean 31…

I mean 37…

I mean Joe Namath. Yes, Joe only wore the number 12 on the field during Jets games, but before the games or on the sidelines he wore all sorts of numbers.

Now that cooler weather has come to the Rust Belt branch of Uni Watch Headquarters, I thought it was a good time to run an article about warmup jackets. And Jimmy thought it was a good week to run this particular article, since the Jets just wore their Super Bowl III throwbacks on Monday Night Football. With those classic unis fresh in our memories, let’s sit back and enjoy this piece, along with another edition of Uncle Jimmy’s Story Time. Take it away!

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A few months ago, the Jimmer featured an old sports book that had a photo of Joe Namath wearing a Jets jacket with a number other than his 12 on the sleeve.

I mentioned to Jim that Namath very seldom actually wore a jacket with his number on it, and I would see how many photos I could find of him with different numbers. But first let’s take a look at the jackets. In the late ’60s and ’70s some teams wore short track style jackets that were made by Sand Knit, they were cut to go over the shoulder pads and most were size Large, so they were interchangeable among the players; you could grab any one, and it would fit.

My father had a jacket like this when he was with the Philadelphia Bell.

I remember only the QB’s getting them, but it was so plain he hated it. His didn’t even have the Bell logo sewn on the back like the one in the photo, with no number or logo on it. He actually threw it out when we moved to a new house in 1980.

The Dallas Cowboys wore these jackets, but they didn’t have numbers on the sleeve, so you never saw Craig Morton wearing a jacket with another number besides his #14 on it.

The Baltimore Colts wore them and here is the great Johnny Unitas wearing one with a #76 on it.

The Kansas City Chiefs also wore these jackets, and I have seen Len Dawson with different numbers besides his #16.

If you look at the photos of Joe Namath, he is only wearing his #12 in one photo. In the other eight photos he is wearing a different number.

If you look at the black and white photo of Namath wearing the #72 jacket, behind him you will see kicker Bobby Howfield actually wearing Namath’s #12 jacket.

I was too young to remember much of my father playing for the NY Jets. He was on the taxi squad, he went to practice every day and did not suit up for games.

He would get two tickets to every game and my Mother would go to the games with her father, sometimes sitting next to Namath’s father. We were living in my grandparents’ house in New Jersey during this time. My father didn’t make enough money to get a place in New York, and in the next year he would get cut from the Jets, Patriots and Eagles before landing in Pottstown and making big money for the first time in his career.

I asked my mother did he ever get one of those cool Jets jackets. She said no, they gave him a team-issued bag with the Jets logo on it that you couldn’t buy in a store and people would stop him in airports to ask him if he played for the Jets and, did he know Joe Namath. She told me two stories that I remember hearing as a kid, and the dinner story I remember seeing but wasn’t sure why it was so funny at the time.

My Mother was an expert on hearing my father get screamed at by coaches. She has seen him in person get screamed at by Maryland head coach Tom Nugent, and Lee Corso who was the QB coach at Maryland. She saw Patriots coach Mike Holovak have to be restrained after my father dismissed a play he called, then threw an interception with his own play. And of course, the whole family remembers our family vacation in the summer of 1971 at Eagles camp watching him get screamed at every morning by head coach Jerry Williams because he wasn’t doing full jumping jacks.

My mother said the King was undisciplined and had an anti-social personality and would do everything he could to antagonize coaches until he would get cut and go back to the minor leagues where he seemed more comfortable. She said the loudest she ever heard him get screamed at was by Weeb Ewbank when he was with the Jets. For some crazy reason, my father thought he had the same status as Joe Namath and would joke around with Weeb. The coach was not known for his great sense of humor. She told me one day she was at summer camp practice with my grandfather. The cop would let them through the fence and sit in chairs on the field with girls who would come to see Joe. My father comes out to practice without a helmet. The QB’s wore red sleeveless jerseys that they would pull over the green practice jersey so they would not be getting hit. Weeb said, “King, where is your helmet?” My father said, “Back in the locker room. I’m not getting hit so I didn’t wear it.” My mother said Weeb’s blood was starting to boil, then he let him have it. She didn’t remember the exact words but said it went something like, “You get your ass back in that locker room and get that helmet on and don’t take it off until I say so. You don’t run shit around here, I do.” When my father started to walk back to the locker room Weeb told him to sprint… he wasn’t moving fast enough for him. While my father was getting his helmet my mother said Weeb was still screaming and saying, “Who does this guy think he is? Nobody pulls this shit on me.” She said her father whispered to her, “Weeb is really pissed.” When he got back on the field Weeb took him aside for some more screaming, but she couldn’t make out what he was yelling. My mother later asked him, “What was Weeb yelling at you when he got back on the field?” He said he didn’t remember, that he tunes the screaming out and doesn’t listen at all to it. That’s why it never bothered him like it did with some players. My mother told me Weeb Ewbank was actually a nice guy and even felt bad when he cut my father, but the King just would bring out the worst in people.

The other story my mother told me I remember but I didn’t laugh like everyone else did at the time. My Mother’s family is Italian, and her mother was a great cook. My father loved her lasagna, and really looked forward to lasagna night. But by the time my father got home from practice there was no lasagna left. My uncle had eaten the last of it and no one saved any for the King. The next time my grandmother made it my mother gave my father a heads up and told him to get home fast from practice. The King wasn’t kidding this time. He went directly from the practice field to my grandparents’ house and showed up in his New York Jets practice uniform. Everyone was laughing because he ate dinner in his uniform, but he got all the lasagna he wanted. He was wearing a red cloth non-contact jersey over his green jersey. My grandmother washed his football uniform, and he took it back to practice the next day and Weeb Ewbank never found out about this one.

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Thanks, Jimmy! Great stories as always, and I really love those jackets. I’m still trying to find something similar in a thrift store, so I can make my own Jets warmup.