I am a fan of the New York Jets

As I left mass this morning, I caught that second half of the Jets-Broncos game. It was one of those London games of the 2025 season, with a kickoff just as mass was starting. 

I have been following the Jets since Joe Namath took them to the Super Bowl so many years ago. They have never been my main team. That loyalty has belonged mainly to the Buccaneers, Rams and Vikings, when I lived in the same city as those teams. But for over 50 years, the Jets have been my second team, the team I always wanted to do well, and to someday return to Superbowl glory. 

If you dig around my house, you'll find some Rams stuff and a few Vikings things. but much more Jets. Jets hat, sweatshirt and coffee mug are the things seen most often. In 2023 I went to the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton. First stop, Kurt Warner's bust. Second stop, Joe Namath's bust. Rubbed Joe's nose for good luck like thousands of others. Didn't rub Kurt's nose. 

When my son was 12 his approach to the baseball plate mimicked the stance of Mark McGwire. Mark and my son lived for a while in the same city and were baseball players at the same time, though at different levels. 

When I was 12 and playing quarterback in my front yard with my friends, my stance as I dropped back to pass, mimicked that of Joe Namath. It was intentional, I really tried to hold the ball the way I thought he did, and release it as he did. In reality I was a poor imitation but in my mind I was pretty close. 

With today's result, Jets lost and are now 0-6, the season is likely over. I get to be one of the first fans to start thinking hard about the 2026 draft and what it means for my team. Perhas there is another Namath in next year's class. One who is a true student of the game, who has watched the old film footage from the 60s and marveled at the moves of Broadway Joe. Maybe. 

As I left Mass I did not have the Jets on my mind. But when I turned on the game on the radio, I no longer had the miracle of the Mass on my mind. What does that say about me. Perhaps nothing, just a normal human whose mind moves from one thing to another. Or, am I just a passing fan of both? I hope not. Christ has many fans, but very few fully devoted followers. 

College Football. Weekend Two

 It feels odd. Watching employees of the State of Michigan play football against employees of the State of  Texas. Doesn't sound much fun does it? The day is early but all the lead-up to this seems out of place, out of time. 

The old conference structure is gone. Replaced by one that will not last nearly as long as the one it replaced. 

Money has a way of pushing things around. It disrupts, in both good ways and bad. The employees will make demands. The marketplace will make demands. The state will make concessions, for a time. 

Will we still be able to pretend this is "best for the student-athelete"? Probably not. 

Then it will blow up. 

San Francisco 1982

I am wandering the blocks around the TransAmerica building, searching for an old hangout, Paoli's. As a young broker trainee in SF in the early 80's, this is where you would find me occasionally. Unwinding with friends. Talking about the market like we were old veterans. Watching the 49ers march through the playoffs on their way to the Superbowl. Missing my wife and new baby girl. Apart from the TA pyramid, nothing looks familiar.
.................

I still miss 'em

In the fall of 1968, just after I turned 12, I had my first cigarette. Behind the gym at Everitt Junior High School in Panama City Florida. Actually it was my second if you count the lit butt I found on the sidewalk outside our house in Chicago in 1962, I was six and took one puff. I guess that doesn't really count.

Anyway, the junior high event started me on this love/hate relationship with cigarettes that continued off and on through high school. In college it was more off than on as I took up running and would quit for months at a time while I took in the new passion for pounding the streets. I started again with the onset of my first real job after college, management trainee with JCPenney in Little Rock, Arkansas and continued through engagement to my wife, marriage, the birth of our first child. All of these were major life events that caused me to swear off cigarettes, but that only lasted a day or two.

October 15, 1983 was the day of the Texas/Arkansas football game. In the days of the old Southwest Conference this was one of the most important events of the year for Arkansans, whether one was a big sports fan or not. We lived in a place the locals referred to as Pine Bluff, Arkansas, a bedroom community of Little Rock. Although I grew up with my dad's affinity for Texas football it didn't run very deep and the passion of my adopted state for the Razorbacks was infectious.

On the morning of the game I thought again about the need to quit the habit and wondered how I could make it through the weekend without lighting up. I thought through the weekend as a series of time compartments. I got this sense that if I could just make it past the game I could probably make it through the whole day. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense but it did at the time. My oldest daughter was almost three and I asked her if she would go running with me before the game started. This would get me through the first time slot. We went outside and for about 30 minutes chased each other around a long block that circled a nearby church. The trot was enough to remind me of how much I loved running and how the tobacco was wearing on my lungs.

When we got back to our little apartment I was determined to at least make it to halftime. Made it. Third quarter, made it. Fourth quarter, game over. Razorbacks badly beaten, 30 something to 3. I had made it and on through the rest of the day. Sunday morning, once I made it past the church service, the rest of the day was not quite as hard. Monday, Tuesday, easier. That was over 25 years ago.

I still miss 'em. While giving up the habit has saved me over $66,000 (2 packs a day @ 3.50 average per pack for 26 years) there are still times when I would love to sit on the porch with a cup of coffee, the newspaper, a pack of Salems, and a couple of fellow smokers. If I thought I could get away with it and not start the habit again, I would. I'm not that strong. That physical sensation that came from quenching the nicotine craving with a freshly lit cigarette was really something. Especially after a good meal. You know what I mean.

Occasionally I will pass the smokers outside my office and remember my old habit. When I quit, smoking was still common in office buildings. I never had to go outside. Never had to take a break from work to light up. I smoked on buses and on airplanes. In my house, in my car, with my little girl on my lap.

I now pass these folk as they huddle outside my office building and sometimes remember that I was one of them, though the memory is fading. When I am traveling out of the country and can pick up a carton of cheap cigarettes, I do, and then give them away. Can't pass up that bargain. In the winter I will shake my head and quickly walk by them, thinking about how weak they are, not strong like me to kick the habit. But i'm not as strong as I think. I have other habits that have taken the place of that one.

Every once in a while I will see them chatting, laughing, sharing some joke, or a problem, getting acquainted, sharing a light, cursing their habit in the bitter cold, cursing the political correctness that forces them outside, and I will envy them. I will forget all the bad things about smoking, all the money I wasted and how smokers are forced to plan their days, friends, work and life in general around the habit. I see them and ponder if I would be tough enough to be in their ranks today, especially when the temp outside is double digits below zero. I am glad that they are still there and I hope they continue to thumb their noses, or ashes, at those who force them into alleys and corridors. There are a lot of bad habits in this world that lead to a hoard of pain and suffering. Gluttony, drunkedness, greed, and the like. In the big scheme of things this one is hardly worth noticing.

Hey man, I can still slap open a zippo with the snap of my fingers and light a match with a nick of the thumbnail. I miss 'em.

Heroes

Every child needs a hero. When I was a kid I had a ton of them. Athletes like Mickey Mantle, Roger Staubach and Roger Maris. Astronauts like John Glenn and Gordon Cooper. Politicians like Robert Kennedy. These were men who could do no wrong by my take. While I knew they all had human failings, I didn't know what they were, and didn't want to know. Whatever good there is in my character is partly due to the type of people I dreamed about being when I was a boy.

In 1999 Kurt Warner came out of nowhere and lit up the world of a thirteen year old who was the most important guy in my life, son Rob. It was a story almost unbelievable. The football hero who was sacking groceries one year and leading a team to the Super Bowl the next. And not just any team, our team, the St. Louis Rams. I don't know how many games we attended that year but it seems like we were at all of them. While we didn't make it to the Super Bowl, we were there for the 1999 NFC Championship when the Rams beat the Bucs on a 4th quarter touchdown from Warner to Ricky Proehl. Rob and I were standing near the exits, watching that perfect pass, and then bolting for the door so I could catch a flight.

Kurt Warner came into our world just months after the president of the united states was impeached for a series of moral failings, a hero who let down my son and daughters and a whole generation of their peers. It was also the same year that Rob's grandfather, my dad, passed away, and one of the biggest men in his life was gone. And while no one could replace a grandfather, Kurt Warner was a clean living, football flinging, hard working amazing athlete who came into our lives when we needed him most, and when a kid really needed a hero.

He was back again this weekend. Larger than life. Leading the former St. Louis Cardinals football team in the Super Bowl. No longer the fairy tale story, now one of the greats of the game, a future hall of famer. He'll always be special to our family, for the example he set on the field and off.