Broadway Joe’s Magic Didn’t Work This Time

Thirty years ago today, the lights went out on Broadway Joe.

A year earlier, Joe Willie Namath had become the King of Football, guaranteeing an upset win by his New York Jets over the Baltimore Colts in the Super Bowl, then pulling it off.

But a year later, in the AFL semifinal playoff match with Kansas City at Shea Stadium, Len Dawson was the more effective quarterback. Kansas City 13, New York 6.

Namath’s Super Bowl heroics seemed a distant memory on a cold (35 degrees), windy afternoon in New York. Namath completed only 14 of 40 passes, was intercepted three times and sacked twice on third down.

Afterward, he saluted the winners.

“Yes, the wind was a factor, but so was that Kansas City defense,” he said.

“I feel like I’ve been in a gang fight, all by myself.”

The Chiefs kept Namath out of the end zone, with the key being a goal-line stop early in the fourth quarter at the Kansas City one-yard line after a pass interference call on the Chiefs’ Emmitt Thomas.

Two runs failed before Namath had to throw the ball out of the end zone on a broken play. New York settled for a Jim Turner field goal.

The defensive stop was led by emotional middle linebacker, Willie Lanier, who was “crying, near-hysterical,” according to Thomas.

“He kept begging us to stop them,” Thomas said.

“He said we had worked for everything since July for this and we couldn’t throw it away now.”

Also on this date: In 1972, Hall of Fame catcher Gabby Hartnett died on his 72nd birthday. . . . In 1966, the NBA awarded a franchise to Seattle. . . . In 1976, in the Liberty Bowl, Alabama shocked UCLA, 36-6. . . . In 1985, Dennis Potvin of the New York Islanders became the highest scoring defenseman in NHL history with a cross-rink assist on a Mike Bossy goal. It was Potvin’s 916th point, breaking a tie with Bobby Orr. . . . In 1958, in the Los Angeles city high school football championship game, Banning beat Fremont, 59-19, before 9,852 at the Coliseum. . . . In 1986, USC Athletic Director Mike McGee interviewed a 39-year-old candidate to replace Ted Tollner as football coach: Paul Hackett. Larry Smith was eventually hired.