The Schmitt family

I’ve never been a big sports fan. Sure, once it gets to time for the baseball playoffs, I’ll usually watch some or all of the games, but it’s never been something that I’ve arranged my day around. The exception has been that for 45 seasons the guys in my family have followed the New York Jets as season ticket holders.

For the first year or so, it was my father and some work associates, joined by my brother and myself when we could. On a few occasions, by grandfather came, too, and we had three generations enjoy the game together. We had our green and white hats (most people wore the old wool hats rather than the baseball hats that are more popular now) and our green and white scarves. Mom found a new source of ideas for Christmas presents, and we got green socks and similar items in December. We’d pack up blankets and head over to Shea stadium, listen to the New York Jets band play from the open end of the stadium and watch the little guy climb into the little jet and drive up and down the sideline whenever OUR team scored while jets from LaGuardia flew over head and an icy wind blew off of Flushing Bay.

In the beginning, a lot of the fans who attended the games with us were New York Giants fans who couldn’t get tickets for those games, and settled for Jets games. Some still are. But many of us became big fans of the AFL. Every now and them, you’ll still hear one of these people slip, as the Superbowl gets closer, and refer to the AFL instead of the AFC. We supported the team and the league when they were little more than a joke made when people talked about “real” football. We were there before Joe Namath, and we watched the team grow and improve. We watched Johnny Sample bless himself whenever he came out of the huddle and listened to one of the guys behind us whoop whenever Wahoo McDaniel came onto the field. We watched Don Maynard, George Sauer, Matt Snell, and Emerson Boozer score. When we made it to the Superbowl, one of our friends with a good recorder taped the audio broadcast (VCR’s weren’t around, yet) and we saved a copy. We stayed after Namath while Todd, Woodall, O’Brien, Ryan, Nagle, Essiason, Testeverde and any number of other quarterbacks took the reigns and couldn’t quite get us back while Kurt Sohn, Al Toon, Freeman McNeil, Rob Moore, and Curtis Martin came and went and when a walk-on from Hofstra named Wayne Chrebet was given a courtesy tryout and became a team star with more shirts in the stands than anyone else. We watched them retire or otherwise move on. We came back after a coach resigned to go back to college sports before the end of the season and when Rich Kotite came in to save us from Pete Caroll, who didn’t seem all that bad. Weeb Ewbank, Charlie Winner, Lou Holtz, Joe Walton, Walt Michaels, Bruce Coslet, Pete Caroll. Rich Kotite, Bill Parcells, Herm Edwards, Eric Mangini, and others promised another winning team. At the beginning of Rich Kotite’s second season, we reassured ourselves that it couldn’t get worse, but it did and we went from 3 and 13 to 1 and 15. We cheered for the Sack Exchange, even when Joe Klecko and Mark Gastineau both missed the quarterback and collided, knocking each other out. Midway through one season, a defensive player (Eric McMillan) was our leading scorer and we still kept coming. We were there when Dennis Byrd broke his neck and gave him a standing ovation when he returned to the field with a cane, walking against all odds.

We watched a flying lawnmower crash into the seats in front of us, tragically killing a fan. We endured half-time shows that included Diaper Races (really!). We honored Joe Namath, Don Maynard, Weeb Ewbank, and Joe Klecko as their shirts were retired, and wondered when the glory would return. But, we kept coming back.

We endured terrible conditions at Shea after the baseball season ended, along with most maintenance, and moved with the team to the Meadowlands. Leon Hess and the ownership/management of the team recognized the importance of the fans and our ticket section was kept together. Lenny, Harry, Peppy, and the other folks we knew by face if not by name from Shea were there when we arrived in New Jersey. We were offered, and purchased a couple of extra seats when we moved, but they weren’t with our regular seats and we found that as the team got worse, we couldn’t give them away, so we let them go. But we kept our regular seats. My Dad and I both moved to dfferent parts of Connecticut and I’d pick him up and make the long drive down, meeting my brother in the parking lot, and we kept coming.

Peppy died, but his sons are still there. Lenny’s father-in-law, Harry, died, but Lenny still comes with his kids. My grandfather died in 1973 but his great grandchildren are there. My wife first met my parents when I brought her down from college to a game at Shea. It became a family rite of passage to be brought to the games. First my brother’s kids, then my own, joined us, got their obiligatory Jet hat, and we kept coming. The parking folks started making it harder to meet people before the games by changing the entry patterns after 11:00am for the 1:00pm games, so we came earlier. We’ve had several generations of camp stoves that have never been camping, first cooking up some calamari followed by sausage and onions served on pita bread, then adding some variety when the lingering smell of onions in the car for the week following each game became too much.

Leon Hess had become the primary owner. He may have been a businessman, but he cared about the fans. He had moved whole sections from Shea to the Meadowlands. At one point, he promised not to raise prices again until he delivered a winning team. He did and the price did go up, but we understood. Then Leon Hess died and Woody Johnson bought the team from the Hess estate. He announced that the fans should have a home of their own and started his battle to get a new stadium. Sure, we played at a stadium with another teams name on it, but there really wasn’t anything wrong with the stadium itself. He tried to get one built in New York City, over the rail yards, and somebody noticed that parking there wouldn’t permit tailgating. Woody responded that the fans were so great that they would find another way to support the team (I don’t recall being asked) as long as we had our own stadium. When that fell through, it became okay to share again, as long as our name was on the building, too. Then came the kicker. To get seats that are similar to the ones we have had will require the purchase of a Personal Seat License for a fee approaching mortgage levels (about $150,000). The only consideration for all these years is that we could buy our Personal Seat Licenses in order of our longevity (not counting the fact that the team doesn’t have records — or says they don’t — before sometime in the late seventies). And, all the Personal Seat License fee will provide is the right to buy the seats, which will still be over $100 per seat per game. Some quick math shows that we’ve already put in almost a quarter of a million dollars over 45 years on tickets alone. Of course, the new stadium will have luxury boxes that Woody Johnson can sell to corporations and the teams name will be in half of the stadium name. And, of course, we could move from Row 15 to the Upper tier without paying for a license. Gee, that’s awfully generous!

It all comes down to greed and ego. There’s really nothing wrong with the current stadium other than that Woody Johnson can’t brag about it. The fans who have supported the team for so many years have been betrayed and we’re a bit P.O.’d, but there isn’t a lot we can do about it. Thanks for your support and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. OUR team was legally stolen. Without fans, a team has no value, so Woody Johnson must think we’re replaceable. None of the people we know are springing for the Personal Seat License and I only know of one who is considering moving to the Upper Tier. All of us who stayed with the team that moved from Shea to the Meadowlands will have to say our goodbyes at the end of the 2009 season. Even if we had the resources and desire to pay the Personal Seat License, no plan has been put forward to keep sections together. We don’t matter. OUR team has been taken as the hobby of a man who inherited a lot of money and has decided that we need to pay him a small fortune for the privilege of watching HIS team. After sticking with the team through 45 years of mostly losing seasons, we’ve been dumped like an aging trophy wife with a pre-nup that leaves her nothing. It may be legal, but it certainly isn’t ethical.

When the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, my grandfather stopped watching Baseball. He saw it as a personal betrayal. I’m glad he doesn’t have to watch his football team do the same thing.

We’ve been fans of the New York Jets since the beginning. That’s not an exaggeration, either. My dad wandered over to their offices on Madison Avenue in New York and picked up our season tickets before they played their first game at Shea. The only way anyone could have been following the team longer was to have attended Titan games at the Polo grounds. We remember going to Shea with my grandfather, who’s been gone for 35 years now. We remember “bumping into” Ed Sullivan there (literally), who was a fan, and the excitement of the Superbowl win is an actual memory of a real experience rather than something we read about. This year marks the 45th season we’ve been going to games.

After several years at Shea, we discovered that if we left the house 15 minutes earlier, and brought food, we could sit outside the stadium and watch everyone else come in from our folding chairs in the parking lot. We cheered with everyone else in the lot when the temperature display on the billboard near the parking lot dropped another degree and headed inside to endure the wind off of Flushing bay so we could watch our team with friends we only knew from the games. The woman I married met my parents for the first time when I brought her to a game at Shea.

We followed the team to the Meadowlands, where they were a tenant of the Giants, and almost the entire section moved with us. Lenny, who sat behind us at Shea, still sits behind us now. We thought it would be nice if we could actually have our own stadium, but we didn’t think about it a lot.

We learned a few years ago that a new stadium was going to be built next door to Giant Stadium, which would be owned by both teams. The current stadium is still fine, but this one will have luxury boxes, which really don’t apply to us. This year we learned the details. To purchase seats in a similar location at the new stadium requires the purchase of a Personal Seat License for fifteen thousand dollars a seat, which then allows us to buy the same seats going forward for about the same price as we do now. The only allowance being made for 45 seasons of attendance is that seniority will be applied before lotteries are held to allow us to choose licenses for seats at the new stadium. And, since the team records only go back to 1974 or so, we’ll need to compete with with everyone else who has attended for 35 to 45 years, or so. We are also being allowed to compete for seats that are two sections further from the field and don’t require a license or a new mortgage. Either way, there’s no provision we’ve heard of that would sit us near Lenny or all the other Sunday friends we know by face if not name.

I spoke to Lenny last night (after so many years, we do have the number), and he said that this has definitely changed things. He used to live and breathe all things “Jet”. After the way the team has handled this, it isn’t the same. We found out the loyalty only extended one way.

Will’s Eagle Court of Honor was held on June 15, 2008, and it worked out very nicely with the entire family being involved. Will’s sister Becky is a member of the Venture Crew with the troop (Venturing is a co-ed part of the Boy Scouts that extends to age 21), Nancy and I were seated in the front, and Harry, as a Webelos Cub Scout, was the escort for the newest Eagle Scout. Clicking on the picture to the left links to an album of photos from the ceremony, taken by Lorenzo Recine and much appreciated.

Since it was Father’s Day, it was nice to see how many adults came to the ceremony. It speaks volumes about the commitment of these guys who shepherd the Scouts. (more…)

Well, as we noted, Friday was the night of the prom at Notre Dame (they do a combined Junior/Senior event). They looked great, and it sounds like they had a great time (from what little they’ll say, which I suspect is positive).

It brought back a lot of memories of my own while I watched them begin to build memories of their own. I’ve really begun to enjoy watching my kids go through rites of passage that I remember well, myself. They’ve got a certain disbelief in their eyes when I tell them it wasn’t that long ago, but I suppose that’s just one more example of the things they’ll have to learn for themselves.

Tonight is my oldest son’s Junior Prom. Proms are rites of passage that have somehow managed to get out of control at some schools to the point of cancellation. That’s too bad.

I went to Chaminade from 69 to 73. I didn’t meet the girl I took to the Junior Prom until April, with the prom in May. I was technically too late, but they sold me the ticket anyway. All the good tuxes were gone, but I wore a brown, western style, tux that met my minimal expectations I remember it had brown velvet lapels on the jacket, but a brown satin stripe on the pants. I guess I was really late.

I think John Hutter’s band (Odyssey?) provided the music. John was in my grammar school class, which is why I remember him in particular. John, if you ever do see this, you were good

My recollection is that I sat with Tom Hajny and Jim Rivas.

Her gown was from a cousin’s wedding. I think we had the color of the shirt match something on it, but I don’t remember. I know it was critical for later proms, but this was so last minute.

The prom was held under a big parachute stretched across the main school gym. In NY, you can’t get a license until you’re 17 if you live in certain areas, so Dad drove us and we sat in the back. In hindsight, I hated being driven around, but it was manageable.

It was 36 years ago that I went to that first prom. I hope my son has as good and safe a time as I did.

During the Great Depression, before Christmas in about 1939, my grandparents had gone out. They were attempting to negotiate a lower price on a tricycle that they wanted to buy for my fathers younger brother for Christmas. Like a lot of people at that time, they didn’t have a lot of money. My Dad was babysitting for his younger siblings while his folks were shopping.

The doorbell rang and when my father opened the door, a man asked if this was the Schmitt residence. After being told that it was, the man stated that he had a delivery for them, and proceeded to deliver what my father remembers as being all of the presents that they had put on their lists. When everything was inside, my father asked, “Who shall I say sent this?” The man answered, simply, “Santa Claus.”

My grandfather was a civil engineer, not on a project at the time, and the only guess that my grandparents could make was that when he was on a project he had done something to help somebody else and that this was someones way of saying, “Thank you.”

My grandfather died in 1973 and my grandmother died in 1995. Both died without ever having learned the identity of the 1939 Santa.

I grew up primarily in West Hempstead, New York. Shortly after we moved in, in 1960, I caught the Mumps. As the room that my brother and I shared was on the third floor was too far for Mom to continually check on, I was relegated to her bed during the day. It was just before Christmas, and I was upset because not only was I sick, but I had not been able to visit Santa Claus.

Mom was doing the things that people do after moving into a new older home. From what I’ve been told, she was on a ladder painting when the phone rang. Muttering something about the salesman who kept interrupting her, she climbed off the ladder and answered the phone. A man on the other end asked if he had reached the right number, and then told her that he understood she had a sick child at home. He asked if we would like a visit from Santa Claus.

On Christmas Eve, we heard sirens and a truck with lights flashing pulled up to the front of the house, and Santa climbed out. As my younger brother and sister watched with their jaws hanging open, he came into the house, up the stairs to Mom’s room, and spent a few minutes with me.

As we learned, The volunteer fire department in West Hempstead had a tradition of driving Santa around the town every Christmas Eve, (more…)