My dad would probably tell you that I’ve been a Jets fan “all my life,” but technically since I was 10, as that was the year I really started to pay attention to the sport.  I, however, will tell you that I didn’t come around on the Jets till much later in life, till I was in my 20s, specifically in 2002.

And that was because that was the first year I not only really started paying attention to games, but that I really understood the passion that is there for Jets fans.  It was also the first year I started attending games.

As I’ve said before, I “speak” baseball, so I have a hard time finding parallels in life to football.  This could simply be because I came around so late to it.  But I do see it now.  I see the passion, the living-breathing-eating the sport, especially when it comes to Jets fans.

I’ve often called my contentious relationship with the Jets “an exercise in futility.”  This is because I’ve seen the Giants, a team I probably SHOULD have rooted for because everyone I knew was a Giants fan, win three goddamn Super Bowls in my lifetime.  I had a period of being irrationally angry with my father after the Giants beat the New England Patriots (though in reality, I was happy the Pats lost) in early 2008.  I said, and I quote, “It’s bad enough you made a Mets and a Rangers fan…but making me a Jets fan is the cruelest thing you could have EVER done to me!!”

Eh, it’s a character build.  Certainly the tide has shifted, as my friend Dee who also goes by “Mets Writers” in the sports communities sent me the pic I have posted above.

Four years ago, you couldn’t find this much Jets stuff in this town and surrounding areas.  Now she says, the true tragedy is that she couldn’t find a Jets pillow pet.  I think you could find a Jets bath mat though.

I made it a point to go to a game last year in the new stadium, what Jets fans christen “JetLife Stadium.”

Go Gang Green, Troop 16H lives…and

J! E! T! S!  Jets! Jets! JETS!!!!!