Sack Exchange: The Definitive Oral History of the 1980s New York Jets - Softcover

Prato, Greg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1770410031 ISBN 13: 9781770410039

Publisher: ECW Press, 2011

Synopsis

J-E-T-S! JETS! JETS! JETS!
Comprised of exclusive interviews with Jets players, coaches, and other figures surrounding the organization, Sack Exchange: The Definitive Oral History of the 1980s New York Jets is an eye-opening account of a memorable era in one team's history, which also takes a step back and looks at the state of the National Football League as a whole during the 1980s.
From the events that shaped the 1980s Jets, such as the legacy of Joe Namath, to their multiple playoff appearances during the decade, each triumph and disappointment is chronicled and supplemented with insider information. Other highlights include examinations of the beginning of the Jets' rivalry with the Miami Dolphins; the controversial firing of head coach Walt Michaels; the defensive line, given the nickname "The New York Sack Exchange" and steroid use by certain players and throughout the NFL.
Featured are original interviews with Joe Klecko, Mark Gastineau, Marty Lyons, Abdul Salaam, Wesley Walker, Al Toon, Ken O'Brien, Richard Todd, Pat Leahy, Walt Michaels, and Joe Walton, among many others.

About this title

About the Author

Greg Prato is a Long Island, New York-based journalist, whose writing has appeared in such renowned publications as Rolling Stone, All Music Guide, and Classic Rock Magazine. He is the author of several popular books, 'A Devil on One Shoulder and an Angel on the Other: The Story of Shannon Hoon and Blind Melon,' 'Touched by Magic: The Tommy Bolin Story,' 'Grunge Is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music, 'No Schlock . . . Just Rock!,' 'The Eric Carr Story,' 'MTV Ruled the World: The Early Years of Music Video,' and 'Sack Exchange: The Definitive Oral History of the 1980s New York Jets.'

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Beginning in the 1920s, the New York Giants reigned as the premier NFL team for “the city that never sleeps.” However, by 1960, the AFL gave football fans another New York team to root for, the Titans. By 1962, the team is re–christened the New York Jets.

Frank Ramos: There were five original owners of the Jets. They bought the team for $1 million. The Titans had been bankrupt. Leon Hess, Sonny Werblin, and Townsend Martin all owned equal shares of the team, and Donald Lillis and Philip Iselin owned lesser percentages of the team. So those five men were there from the beginning. I began the first year of the Jets [1963]. I had been in the service at the United States Military Academy at West Point, in the U.S. Army. I was assigned to the Sports Information Office at the academy, and I worked with Joe Cahill, who was the longtime sports information director there. Joe had started at West Point in ’43 — in the famous years of Doc Blanchard, Glenn Davis, and Red Blaik. Joe was there throughout that whole time. The day I got out of the service was the day of the Cuban Missile Crisis showdown — when Khrushchev backed down — and that was the day I got my discharge. Then I stayed on as a civilian, and worked there with Joe. At one time Joe had worked with Pete Rozelle, who was the PR person for the 1960 Olympic Games, and Joe had worked in Squaw Valley when the U.S. hockey team was coached by the army coach, Jack Riley. Joe had worked there with the hockey team and with Rozelle.

When Rozelle became the commissioner, he did talk to Joe about the possibility of joining him in the NFL. But Joe had young kids and was still at West Point, so he declined, and I know that Pete hired Jim Kensil — he was also up for that job. But a few years later, Sonny Werblin talked to Joe about going to New York to be an assistant to him, and be in charge of PR. There was no such thing as marketing at the time in pro football, but he would be overall in charge of all those types of things. Joe was thinking, did he really want to leave West Point after twenty years? I said to Joe I thought the AFL definitely had a chance. There was room for two teams in New York, especially. And I thought pro football was really catching on — New York was one area where there weren’t any real pro football teams. Army got as much coverage as any team — more so than Rutgers, Columbia, or any team in the New York area. It’s still not a hotbed for college football. I said, “Since you’ve been here, all your people — like Red Blaik, Davis, and Blanchard — are no longer there.” He says, “You know, if I go to New York, I’m going to take you with me.”

I was hoping for that — he did take the job and he did hire me. Joe went down in April to take the job, and I stayed at West Point as the acting sports information director. And then I joined him after I completed all the brochures and everything that Army needed, and joined the Jets in June of ’63. I’m originally from Long Island, but my family moved during my sophomore year of high school to Miami. I finished high school in Miami and went to school at Florida State.

Joe Fields: I was born in Gloucester, New Jersey, and grew up in Deptford, New Jersey. First of all, I played football in grammar school — in a touch football league. All of the kids who were too heavy to make the weight on the Pop Warner teams played in this touch league. I went to Gloucester Catholic High School — to tell you the truth, I wasn’t very good. I started my senior year, and didn’t really think about playing in college football. I did get recruited at a couple of schools — one being PMC [Pennsylvania Military College], which later changed its name to Widener [University]. One of my old coaches took me and a couple of the other guys to PMC, and it was just a little bit out of reach financially, and there was no help. But around July, Bill Manlove — who was head coach at PMC at the time — called and said he could give me a $1,500 loan if that would help.

Actually, my mom talked me into it. She said, “You love football, you really like to play. Why don’t you play now that you’ve got the loan?” So I ended up going to Widener. And what happened was back then you had to make the traveling squad as a freshman. I made the traveling squad as a freshman, and then my junior year, we had a guy playing for us, Billy “White Shoes” Johnson, and he was my teammate. Some scouts started to come around and see him. At the time, I was like 6' 2', 220 or 230 pounds, and Carroll Huntress — who was a scout for the New York Jets — pulled me aside one day when he was looking at films of Billy. I was at an awards dinner. And he called me out of it down to the clubhouse at Widener, and said, “Hey Joe, every time I watch films of Billy, I see you! I really think you can play professional football if you would gain some weight.” He goes his way, and I go my way. I start thinking about it, what the heck is twenty pounds? So twenty or thirty pounds later, I came into training camp at Widener at 250.

Again, towards the end of the season, Carroll Huntress shows up, and he says, “Your size is good,” and timed me in the forty [yard dash], and did all the nonsense things they do. He says, “I think you can play ... but I’ve never seen you long–snap.” So I happened to be, again, at another banquet. I went into the field house, and in shoes and a suit and tie, I long–snapped for him. After that, he told my coach, “There are three centers in the country — Jack Baiorunos at Penn State, Dennis Franks at Michigan, and Joe Fields. And I think Joe is the best.”

Carroll sat me down and said, “If you don’t get drafted, we’d really like to sign you as a free agent.” So I thought about it, and I got some letters from other teams. I thought to myself, “I gained the weight, I went this far — I’m going to try it for a year or two and see if I don’t get drafted.” Then what happened was on draft day, I got drafted in the fourteenth round by the New York Jets, which was interesting because I had never even been in an airplane — I didn’t even know where the airport was! A friend of mine, Ken O ’Brien — who was our quarterback at Widener — took me down to the airport, so I could fly up and get a physical with the Jets. When I was flying up in the airplane, there was a guy they drafted in second round from the University of Miami, Joe Wysocki, and he was, like, 6' 3' and 290 — he was a guard. And when he walked in the airport, I just said, “If all the guys are like this, there’s no way that I belong.” He had, like, twenty–three–inch arms — the guy was huge. Anyway, Joe didn’t end up playing — he hurt his knee — and I ended up playing fourteen years. So I guess first impressions are a little bit off.

Richard Todd: I was born in Birmingham, Alabama. My father was a schoolteacher, and moved all over the place — lived in Arkadelphia, Arkansas; Bristol, Virginia — he got his doctorate degree at the University of Alabama, so I lived in Tuscaloosa. We settled down when I was in the eighth grade in Mobile, Alabama. I remember playing Pee Wee football when I was young — the coach got mad at me and I got mad at him, and I threw my helmet down, and it banged against his shins. He was jumping up and down, and I walked back home — about a mile away in Arkansas [laughs]. I guess football started in the ninth grade. I stuttered — and I still stutter quite a bit, but not as bad as I used to. I always wanted to be a wide receiver — I never thought about being a quarterback because I was pretty fast back then, and I liked to run and catch the ball. And then the quarterback — who was going to be the quarterback in the ninth grade — his father got transferred out of town, and the family moved. So they lined everybody up to see who could throw the best, and I could throw the best. So I was the quarterback on the freshman team. We had a couple of really good receivers, and I could throw it deep, so we threw the ball quite a bit. My coach, Richmond Brown, he was always a real positive influence. And I guess that’s when I really started.

I played at Davidson High School — we didn’t have really good teams, but we had a lot of fun. Our coach, Glen Yancey, he actually coached three quarterbacks that played in Division I — myself, Scott Hunter, and I can’t remember the other one, but Scott Hunter played professional football, also. I committed to Auburn because that was when they had Pat Sullivan, Terry Beasley, and all these guys — Pat Sullivan won the Heisman Trophy that year [1971]. But I ended up going to Alabama — I went because of Coach Bryant. That was really the only reason. They ran “the wishbone,” and I was just a big old slow fullback. But we had great teams in Alabama — we split the National Championship my sophomore year with Notre Dame. We were the UPI champions; they were the AP. They beat us — that was before the Bowls, they used to come out with the National Championship before the Bowls came out. I think that was the last year they did it — 1973. We were number one and they were number two, and they beat us by one point at Tulane Stadium. That was my sophomore year, and my senior year. I had a pretty good year — I was the Most Valuable Player in the Sugar Bowl [in 1976]. We actually played Penn State, and Greg Buttle was on that team. We became good friends.

Edition details

• Publisher: ECW Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1770410031
• ISBN 13: 9781770410039
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 438