Chapter 18: The Irrepressible Jets The Jets were 18-point underdogs for Super Bowl III. The Green Bay Packers had won the first two Super Bowls over American Football Conference teams after the merger of the two leagues, so there was little respect for the Jets and the AFC. I can't say I thought the Jets would beat the vaunted Baltimore Colts, but I always grew a little uneasy when people were so cocksure about the outcome of a sports event. I remembered that it was only five years earlier in the same Miami that heavyweight champion Sonny Liston was regarded as invincible against the then Cassius Clay who proceeded to whip him. I cast around for a way to give the underdog Jets a chance and came up with this column a few days before the big game. I am no biblical scholar, but I liked the idea of using football press conference cliches to suggest the possibility of an upset by comparing the Jets-Colts to David-Goliath. I dug into my Miami hotel bible and came up with a column that ran with a head I contributed. It proved to be right on the mark in view of developments. And I noted years later that John Elway talked about Denver being David to Green Bay's Goliath for the 1998 Super Bowl. Art Kaminsky, the agent, a Long Island resident, once said that I was the best unread columnist in the country. I think this was the kind of column that would have made a bigger splash if Newsday were a New York City newspaper--which it wasn't until years later. By that time I was doing a sports media column. It had more impact than any of my Out of Left Field efforts circulated essentially on Long Island.
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You show me a man who shoots a good game of golf, and I'll bet he neglects his business, or someone does his work for him. I don't have much time for golf. |
