Tales from the Jets Sideline - Hardcover

The New York Jets have not basked in an abundance of pride and glory. Sure, they were led to the "promised land" by Joe Namath with the stunning Super Bowl VII upset victory that capped the magical 1969 season. Since then, however, the Jets have careened through life alternating between bumbling and embarrassing, maddening and entertaining, while all along the way teasing their ardent fan base so tantalizingly that, rather sadistically, it has become a way of life. In Tales from the Jets Sideline, author Mark Cannizzaro takes readers on a journey, through his eyes and the eyes of the subjects he has covered, across the maze of musings, controversial happenstances, and occasional brilliance the Jets have displayed during the years he has followed the franchise. Fans will be taken through some of the crazy Bruce Coslet years that featured a series of extreme highs and lows. Fans will also recall Coslet's successor, Pete Carroll, who lasted only a year after the team's late owner, Leon Hess, had a revelation by the name of Rich Kotite while vacationing in the islands. Jets fans will never forget Kotite, but for all of the wrong reasons. The Jets saw some light after the colossal failed experiment that was Kotite, and that light was Bill Parcells and his incredible band of assistant coaches who came within 30 minutes in Denver of bringing the Jets back to where Namath had brought them some 30 years earlier. The Parcells era, however, proved to be as much of a tease as anything in Jets history, because he opted not to finish the job, leaving coaching and soon after leaving the Jets in a messy divorce. Enter Herman Edwards, the energetic fireball of a head coach who is currently trying tomake Jets fans forget about all of the previous angst and tantalizing teases they have endured since Joe Willie's memorable triumph.