My Son Is a Jets Fan.
As I was leaving for a business trip to New York last week, my son informed me that he is Jet’s fan.
Up to that point, I felt that I had done everything right as a father. I have always been a very engaged dad, never flinching when it came to a middle of the night bottle or diaper change. In fact, due to the difficulty of his delivery, I was essentially a solo dad for the first week of his life. I read to him every night even when he thought books where nothing but square things to gnaw on. I can recite Goodnight Moon by heart and have tolerated any number of inane books that I have read 200 times just to be a good dad.
I introduced him to music, bringing an iPod dock to the hospital so that he could identify music with soothing within hours of his birth. Beatles lullabies were the first chords that he ever heard. The Clash was soon after and at 3 months old, he loved to be rocked asleep to the trance of the Orb.
When it comes to sports, I thought that I was working this angle of parental transferable culture in the perfect way. I convinced him to love the Cubs before he could talk, despite his mom’s allegiance to the White Sox. He was glued to my lap when the Bears lost the Super Bowl in 2007 and has been dressed religiously in orange and blue for both Illini games on Saturday and Bears games on Sunday for as long as he has worn clothes.
So to say that his sudden allegiance to the Jets was a shock was not only an understatement, it makes me question my parenting. Will he also starting insisting on listening to Kidz Bop? When he grows up, will he think that the Twilight series is a watershed moment in literature? Where did I go wrong? I did all the things that I thought a parent should do to ensure that as he ages, we’ll have that common bond of sports to connect us through his adolescence and my inevitable slide into ultra uncoolness.
Maybe trying to sow the seeds of my own allegiances is the cause. I made him a Cubs fan. Heartbreak, failure, futility and disappointment are the A, C, G and T of the Cubs DNA. He’s watched the Illini way too much, a school that holds my loyalty as my alma matter, but also is arguably on the silver medal stand of Midwest sports despair next to the Cubs. The Bears are middling at best, a consistent playoff contender but just as consistent a playoff disappointment as well.
Here is the thing with the Jets. I honestly don’t know that much about them. At least no more than the average NFL watcher. Yes, I know that Joe Namath won Super Bowl III after guaranteeing victory while scoping out hotties by the pool. I know that the Jets have made the playoffs in recent memory but never did much with that opportunity. I know that their cheer goes “J.E.T.S. JETS! JETS! JETS! JETS!” I know that Sexy Rexy Ryan is the coach. Is he still? I’ll have to Wikipedia that one. I know that Alex Sanchez was once the savior of the Meadowlands faithful but now is riding the bench for some other guy — I can’t remember his name but might pick him up as a backup QB for fantasy football.
Then I realized…it must have been the stickers.
For anyone that does not have a 1st through 3rd grade boy, you may not be aware of the latest sports/kids/collectible trend. Sticker books. Made by Panini, who was also in the baseball card business, sticker books are the thing. At least they are enough of a thing that they are given away as party favors when you turn seven and when one seven-year-old sees another seven-year-old with a sticker book, the innate genes of bonding, coolness, collecting and maybe a touch of envy are all switched on with a vengeance.
Which, I totally get. I was obsessed with baseball cards from age seven until at least 13. There was something about collecting your “guys” that could easily occupy hours upon hours. Buying the packs, the excitement for the surprise of what players would be in the pack. The disappointment of doubles. Really? Another Jamie Quirk? For the love of God…
The amazing thing about the stickers is that suddenly Tommy knows all of the teams in the NFL. He can recite their names, their cities. He looks at maps to see where they are throughout the country. So at first I was fine with his sudden love because surely he would start singing the words of Bear Down. The stickers are just the latest incarnation of this same boyhood fascination. I guess I should be lucky that this isn’t an app. A pack of 7 stickers costs a buck. The book that they go in costs two. A fairly low-cost for something that has him practicing reading, geography and takes him away from video games for a while.
But I realize that hard as it may be, I have to respect his choices. If I don’t start now, how can I truly be a respectful father. I need to nurture his independence and decision making so I ask him.
“Tommy, what would you like from the Jets?”
“A helmet. No wait. A hat. Or both.”
So I agree, I teach him the “JETS!” cheer and like a good dad returning from a business trip, I know what gift I need to bring home.
However, once in Manhattan something happens. It’s like the Jet’s don’t even exist. I stop in at least a dozen souvenir shops. Yankees hats are everyone. Multiple styles from classic to straight up retro-80's ugly. Mets hats too. But no Jets. I ask one shop keeper and he responds, “Noh. Noh Jets hea. Try cross street.” His buddy is zero for Jets hats as well.
I call home every day and each time Tommy yells into the phone, “Daddy, did you get my Jet’s hat?”
But no luck anywhere. I can buy him one online when I get back, but there’s no fun in that. I’m starting to get desperate. Why can’t I find a Jets hat in Manhattan?
Finally as I’m about to leave New York, I realize that I need to let Tommy know that I could not find a hat. Better disappointment by phone for a seven-year-old. So I call him one last time.
“Sorry, but I can’t find a Jets hat anywhere.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, sorry buddy. I looked everywhere.”
“That’s ok. You can get me a Giants hat instead.”
