Namath: A Biography [Hardcover]

Mark Kriegel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 19, 2004

In between Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan there was Joe Namath, one of the very few sports heroes who transcended their game. The son of a Hungarian immigrant, Namath left the steel country of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, for the Deep South, where he played quarterback for Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama. Almost four years later, he signed a $427,000 contract with the New York Jets that changed football forever, transforming a crude, violent game into show business. Namath became the most glamorous athlete in America––his fame nurtured by the age of television, the point spread, and the sexual revolution. His hair, his draft deferment, and his white shoes became symbols for a generation. But it was his “guarantee” of victory in Super Bowl III that ensured his legend.

In the tradition of Richard Ben Cramer’s Joe DiMaggio, David Maraniss’s A Life of Vince Lombardi, and Nick Tosches’s Dino, Mark Kriegel details Namath’s journey from steeltown pool halls to the upper reaches of American celebrity––and beyond. He renders Namath as an athlete and a man, a brave champion and a wounded soul. Here are Namath’s complex relationships with pain and fame plus his appearances in pantyhose ads, on The Simpsons, and Nixon’s Enemies List. Namath is not just for football fans, but for any reader interested in the central role of sports in American culture.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Avoiding the pitfalls of mythology while telling a larger-than-life story is never easy, but Kriegel does it grandly in this landmark portrait of the 1960s icon. From the segregated South to the era of showbiz sports, Namath has a Forrest Gump-like way of being there. All the important athletic moments are here, elegantly told: his hardscrabble western Pennsylvania upbringing; his unlikely pairing with Bear Bryant; his arrival in New York as a hard-partying, money-making star and, of course, the win in Super Bowl III. Namath comes off as both throwback (he played through unbearable pain) and hypermodern (40 years ago, he was already getting paid to wear certain brands of clothing). But to write of the first media-age sports star is to tell not just of an athlete but the changing nature of celebrity and society in the '60s-that is, the story of modern America-and the author manages the elusive trick of illuminating setting as much as subject. He documents how sports became both big business and pop culture through savvy TV deals and the merchandising of stars. If Namath feels like a distant figure, more statue around whom society scrambled to adjust itself than active change seeker, that's because Kriegel convinces us he was-a figure both epic and accidental in a world revolving too fast for one person to control. Kriegel has written a remarkable book: a feel-good sports story still abundant withinsight and social commentary.
Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

From Bookmarks Magazine

The divided opinion about Namath seems driven as much by its subject as by its author. Critics extol the coverage of Namath’s early career, but when the story turns post-football, many reviewers flinch. It is as if they can’t reconcile their memories of Broadway Joe with the drunken, luckless-in-love man he became (sadly demonstrated last year on live television when an inebriated Namath twice told ESPN’s sideline reporter Suzy Kolber that he wanted to kiss her). Kriegel, a former sports reporter, goes heavy on play-by-play breakdowns—too heavy by some accounts—but also captures the emergence of the American Football League as a competitive force. Told without the participation of Namath (who reportedly wanted compensation and creative control), the author offers a compassionate ear to this difficult tale. For one straight from the horse’s mouth (and full of that hubris of youth), check out Namath’s autobiography, I Can’t Wait Until Tomorrow ‘Cause I Get Better Looking Every Day (1969).

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (August 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670033294
• ISBN-13: 978-0670033294
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.6 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #179,134 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark Kriegel, a former sports columnist for the New York Daily News, is the author of the critically acclaimed bestseller Namath: A Biography. He lives in Santa Monica, California, with his daughter, Holiday.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding sports bio for any fan., October 19, 2005

By 

mcsidious (Kitsap County, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Namath: A Biography (Hardcover)

I am a New York Jets fan, which means that my life on Sundays usually sucks. There have been a few exceptions, such as the Jets' charge to the AFC Championship game and the Monday Night Miracle against the Dolphins, both of which were led by the much-maligned Vinny Testaverde, but mostly my memory of Gang Green has been of Rich (f%!@$&*) Kotite and of Chad Pennington's rotator cuff. However, I have been constantly reminded of the days when the Jets whipped up on everyone and their quarterback was the mythical Broadway Joe Namath, when the overrated Balitmore Colts were embarassed by a guy who guaranteed he'd beat them. So when I saw "Namath" on the shelf, I had to buy it.

I don't read many sports biographies, but in every regard "Namath" stands out as a compelling book that is shocking and emotionally jarring all at once. Mark Kriegel does much to wreck the mythical stature of Broadway Joe, but in doing so he presents a depiction of Ol' Joe Namath that most football fans have never considered. Above all, he impresses upon the reader that although Joe did not have jaw-dropping statistics as a quarterback, his impact on the NFL has been unparalleled - *nobody* influenced the entertainment machine that is the NFL more than Namath.

I grew up in the era of Marino and Montana and all the god-like 80s quarterbacks (heck, I think to this day that even Bernie Kosar was a killer QB), so I heard little about Namath until I became a Jets fan. First I heard about the Guarantee (which, as Kriegel writes, didn't make many headlines at the time - Namath had said many things equally as shocking), then I heard about the Booze and Broads. Kriegel reminds us that Broadway Joe's nickname was no exaggeration - he was an integral part of the New York scene for a decade or so and was the biggest American-born celebrity in, well, the world. He famously stole Mick Jagger's girls and hung out with Mickey Mantle. Even John Wayne said Joe was his hero. I didn't realize the impact Joe (and his huge contract) had had on football.

The early portions of the book concentrate on Joe's rough family life as a kid in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. He was a child of divorce and had older brothers that loved to beat him up, but Kriegel implies that this upbringing allowed him to survive atrocious hits in the NFL. His time at Alabama is also crucial to the story, especially Namath's father-son relationship with the tyrannical genius Bear Bryant. Of course the story of the Jets, the Super Bowl, and the New York parties are told, but many readers may be surprised by the path that the last fourth of the book follows as Joe goes from sports diety to has-been to father to divorcee to drunk. It's a rather depressing ending, but Joe Namath's story isn't over yet.

"Namath" is exhaustively researched and reveals a Joe Namath that is much more than just the Guarantee, the girls, and the booze. Joe is shown to be a man to whom the most important things are always family, loyalty, liquor, - and nothing else. Joe's aloofness toward his former teammates and his unfortunate reliance on his money-mongering agent Jimmy Walsh are offset by the unparalleled beatings he took as the most hated quarterback in the NFL (which he always came back from) and the sad flight of his self-absorbed wife. Joe is, fortunately, shown to be a devoted father - yet he cannot shake his dependence on alcohol.

Perhaps most significantly, this book describes the phenomenal athletic ability of Joe Namath that was ruined when his knees first began to betray him. One can only wonder what a healthy rookie Joe Namath would do today in the NFL. All that aside, "Namath" is a wonderful biography and deserves a look by any football fan (and especially Jets fans). You'll be awed by the heights to which Joe rose and to the depths to which he fell. But most of all, you'll be enthralled by the truth behind the legend of Broadway Joe.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars exceptional reading, January 29, 2007

By 

Baird Jones (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Namath: A Biography (Hardcover)

What I enjoyed the most about Namath by Mark Kriegel was the way the author wove not just the sports play by play aspects of the Namath story, just enough to give a real memory lane feel to the games, but also that sense of the 60s and 70s mood, the sports bars, the Fu Manchu, the swinging Upper Eastside, the competition with Frank Sinatra, the attempts to make it in show biz, and the strange marriage to a woman who seemed to change her first name with the seasons, and the whole alcoholic decline. There are so many stories to Namath and Kriegel moves them along in a fantastically readable way. I just could not put the book down. I ended up actually wishing each section had been much longer but at 441 pages with a significant footnote section obviously Kriegel could not have done more. This is a terrific book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best sport bios ever, August 25, 2006

By 

Bookworm - See all my reviews

This review is from: Namath: A Biography (Paperback)

This is a very interesting book and it takes you through Joe's entire life past his Suzy Kolber interview. Few sports biographies do that. Like Paul Hornung Joe serves as an alter ego for guys who wish they could have had Joe's life in their younger days. I wish that there would have been more pictures of Joe's serious girl friends (there were several), as only Susie Storm & his wife Deborah are pictured in the book. It would have been nice if they were some pictures of where Joe had lived.

You always wonder how playboys will adapt to the married life, as they always get married. Paul & Joe lasted longer than most playboys. Joe said that he only wanted to get married once, and wanted to get his running around out of his system before he settled down. Although his drinking was a problem, he proved to be an otherwise excellent husband and outstanding father. His drinking wasn't what caused his divorce. Unfortunately in Deborah Joe married someone who wanted her own life and wanted to have some success in life. When you marry at 21, you haven't had that opportunity and that was a problem. Joe was so smitten with her that he couldn't see that in her personality before they were married. In retrospect it may have been better if Deborah never married or married much later in life after she had achieved some success in her chosen field. She also was in astrology. Deborah was probably too dominating and also wanted to remake or shape Joe's life and that's never good. That didn't seem to bother Joe and wasn't the cause of the divorce either, although it does give you some insight to Deborah's personality. Another interesting side note about Deborah's family is that her brother died or came up missing while he was suspected to be on a drug run.

As the author pointed out Joe lived off his past but didn't want to live in his past. Joe was like Joe Dimaggio in that respect. Joe did very well financially in his post playing career.