Namath: A Biography
Mark Kriegel
Viking, 480 pages, $27.95

ROUGHLY HALFWAY THROUGH his new biography of Joe Namath, Mark Kriegel writes, with uncharacteristic formality: "It is difficult to imagine an activity more deleterious to the human knee than professional football." In a book written in a vein of street lingo, one that seems to roll along with the buzzing lifestyle Namath led in his heyday, it is a statement that cuts to the heart of the matter of Namath's career. Like that other great New York icon of his era, Mickey Mantle, Joe Namath had bad knees. Born with enormous gifts as an athlete--in high school he considered an offer to play baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals before choosing to join Alabama University's football program--Namath was prematurely aged at 23, forever one bad hit from the end of his career. More than the booze, the women, and the sheer glamorous fun of his life, it seems that the salient point about Namath is what he accomplished on those damaged knees. He won Super Bowl III with a New York Jets team representing what many considered an upstart league, the AFL. He broke numerous quarterbacking records of his time, earning himself a place in football's Hall of Fame. And along the way, he changed the game of football.

In relating Namath's life story, Kriegel has had the tricky task of finding the right note for his audience. For there is, to be sure, a wide difference in attitude between those who grew up with

JOE NAMATH was born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, the home state of two other NFL legends, Joe Montana and Dan Marino. He came from a large Hungarian Catholic family of seven.

Though wispy and small in his youth, Namath was gifted with speed, grace, cunning, and a mean streak of competitiveness. Kriegel's pages on Namath's childhood are sprinkled with nostalgic tales related by boyhood companions, each testifying to the young quarterback's natural talent.

Kriegel is also keen to show Namath as a childhood rebel. We see him enraging his nun instructors, hustling kids in a downtown pool hall, and generally developing the great braggadocio that would later earn him so much fame. We also see Namath as a young Casanova here, maintaining a professional silence about his early conquests even to his closest male friends.

But Namath's youth was not all mischief and athletic glory. Kriegel argues, indeed, that the central event of Namath's childhood was the dissolution of his parents' marriage, which may have been the root of his famous detachment with women. Better to play it cool than to risk the unpleasantness love can bring.

A star quarterback in high school, Namath's college of choice was Maryland, but poor SAT scores left him ineligible for enrollment. He was finally recruited by Alabama University's football program, run then by the legendary coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, a Southerner with an air of God-like authority. As a Yankee in hustler's duds and Italian shoes, Namath initially made a ridiculous impression on the Alabama campus. But he eventually won the affection of Bryant, his teammates, and, indeed, the whole state, as he became the school's stud quarterback, leading the Crimson Tide to an Orange Bowl victory in 1962 and a narrow Orange Bowl loss in 1964 (in an otherwise undefeated season). Under Bryant's guidance, Namath added substance to his risky quarterbacking style, learning that he could sometimes fool defenses by not using his tremendous arm.