The Game That Changed Pro Football

Hanks, freelance sportswriter and publisher of New York Sports Magazine , here glorifies the feats of the New York Jets football team, which changed the organizational structure of professional football in 1968 by winning Super Bowl III. That year, the American Football League, fighting for legitimacy and fiscal soundness, sent the Jets to the Super Bowl to face the Baltimore Colts, the champions of the established and profitable National Football League. The NFL had won both previous Super Bowls, and though the Colts were 19-point favorites, the Jets, led by a brash Joe Namath as quarterback, won 16-7. The AFL, having proved itself to its older brother, later merged with the NFL to form the league as it is today. Unfortunately, Hanks's monument to the 1968 Jets is awkwardly written and his interviews with the central players of Super Bowl III are trite, unrevealing and repetitive. (Oct.)