From Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania to Tuscaloosa

Namath grew up in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania — a steel town about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh. He was the youngest of five children of Hungarian immigrants. He starred in football, baseball, and basketball at Beaver Falls High School and was offered baseball contracts by both the Cubs and the Cardinals; he turned them down because his mother wanted him to go to college first.

Namath was recruited by Notre Dame, Penn State, Maryland, and Notre Dame’s archrival Alabama, among others. Maryland accepted his application but his SAT score was too low for admission. Alabama, where Bear Bryant had begun rebuilding the football program in 1958, took him on the strength of game film alone. Namath signed with Alabama in 1961.

Three years under Bear Bryant

Namath redshirted his freshman year (NCAA freshman ineligibility was still standard), then started at quarterback as a sophomore in 1962. Alabama went 10-1 that season and beat Oklahoma 17-0 in the Orange Bowl. The 1963 season was disrupted when Bryant suspended Namath for two games for breaking team rules — the only time Bryant ever publicly suspended a star player. Namath later said the suspension was the most-impactful thing that ever happened to him in football.

1964 was the championship year. Alabama went 10-1 and was named national champion by the Associated Press in the final pre-bowl poll (the AP voted before bowl season at the time). Namath suffered a serious knee injury in the fourth game of the season but kept playing — the injury that would haunt him through his entire pro career. He came off the bench in the Orange Bowl against Texas with the bad knee, threw two touchdowns, and was named Orange Bowl MVP despite the loss.

The contract heard around football

Both the AFL’s New York Jets and the NFL’s St. Louis Cardinals drafted Namath in November 1964. Sonny Werblin, the Jets’ owner and a former showbiz agent, signed Namath to a $427,000 deal — at the time the most ever paid to a professional football player by a wide margin (typical NFL rookie deals were under $30,000). The signing was as much a moment for the AFL as a player; it forced the eventual NFL-AFL merger.

Namath repaid the contract with the AFL Rookie of the Year award in 1965 and the Super Bowl III guarantee three years later. Alabama retired his #12 jersey in 1990. The school named Joe Namath Field at Newark Memorial High School after him in 2014. Bear Bryant publicly called Namath “the greatest athlete I ever coached” in his autobiography.

Background facts cross-referenced with the Wikipedia article on Joe Namath and Pro-Football-Reference / Basketball-Reference public records.