cover image Gang Green: An Irreverent Look Behind the Scenes at Thirty-Eight (Well, Thirty-Seven) Seasons of New York Jets Football Futility

Gang Green: An Irreverent Look Behind the Scenes at Thirty-Eight (Well, Thirty-Seven) Seasons of New York Jets Football Futility

Gerald Eskenazi. Simon & Schuster, $25 (336pp) ISBN 978-0-684-84115-1

Sometime on or about Super Bowl Sunday, January 12, 1969, someone connected with the New York Jets must have made a pact with the devil, for in exchange for the historic 16-7 upset win over the Baltimore Colts, the team (and their loyal fans) has suffered as few franchises have suffered in the history of professional sports. And Eskenazi, the Jets beat writer for the New York Times for three decades, has captured all the humiliation and the lone supreme triumph in a book that will leave the reader either shaking their heads in defeat or laughing out loud at the ineptitude. Part of the expansionist American Football League, the New York Titans got off to a shaky start under the ownership of broadcaster and ""bullshitter"" Harry Wismer. But in 1963, it passed into the capable hands of Sonny Werblin, who renamed them Jets and gave them uniforms in his lucky green. Werblin soon signed Joe Namath to the famous $400,000 contract and the war between AFL and NFL took off. The AFL was 0-for-2 going into Super Bowl III and the Jets were an 18-point underdog. But with Namath's passing, Matt Snell's running and an unyielding defense, they staged the biggest single upset ever in professional sports. And although the Jets always had a core of all-star players such as Joe Klecko, Wesley Walker and Freeman McNeil, it was all downhill after that. Their futility was epitomized by such hapless coaches as Lou Holtz, Walt Michaels and Rich Kotite; though hope returned with the hiring of Bill Parcells in 1997 and, for once, the future seems bright. This is an in-depth, behind-the-scenes team biography that Jet fans will cherish--though Red Sox and Cub fans should empathize. Editor, Jeff Neuman; agent, Rick Diamond, The Marquee Group. (Oct.)