Jets Fans Chant Challenge

For Jets Fans, a Chant Challenge

09/20 ? I take the Radar podium again today to tell all you fans of the Green & White ? and especially all of you who will be at Sunday's game against the Dolphins and any other game in the Meadowlands this season ? to start thinking about ways to Bring In Da Noise.

Sound is the lifeblood of a home football team. It ramps up the fans' favorite players to perform at greater heights. It discombobulates the visiting team mentally and physically. It washes over everyone and makes the game experience a sensory delight, never more than as an accompaniment to a home victory.

When everything's right, Jets fans in the Meadowlands take their place alongside the loudest current NFL venues ? Baltimore, Kansas City, Denver, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Seattle. The noise can become as deafening as a 757 taking off from nearby Newark Liberty Airport.

And the Jets chant is to die for. As head coach Eric Mangini said this summer:

"We always try to simulate the crowd noise, but the 'J‑E-T-S, Jets! Jets! Jets!' on the loudspeaker, it really isn't the same. You try to tell that to the rookies and other guys, but it's something you just need to experience to appreciate."

Then there was an appreciative football fan who had seen and heard Jets fans in action for the first time and told me for my book, "Stadium Stories: New York Jets":

''It's amazing. Fans are making all kinds of sounds, then one guy stands up and everybody gets quiet and he starts moving his arms, forming letters, and a whole stadium spells out the team's name as one. It makes the hairs on your neck stand up."

Fireman Ed has been that man, but he's been unable to make this season's games due to an injury. It's up to the fans to carry on a great tradition that has its roots in Flushing, N.Y., in the Sixties.

Back in the day, the Jets had to suffer the indignity, when the Baltimore Colts' rabid fans came to Shea Stadium, of having a blue-clad, horseshoed fan armed with a megaphone leading the out-of-towners in the portable stands by the scoreboard in cheers of "C-O-L-T-S, Colts! Colts! Colts!"

This situation lasted a New York minute. Urban legend has it that when city fireman Larry Mack, who wore a colored wig and sat in the upper deck, heard the Colts chant, he said, "Four letters are better than five," and painted them on his body. At the appropriate time, he performed a cheeky ritual that led to the famous mantra.

Then came the dueling end zones, with the East-enders starting the chant and daring the West-enders to return volley even louder (and vice versa). Shea fans may actually have invented the Sound Wave years before fluttering hands circled cookie-cutter stadiums everywhere.

Fast-forward to today. The team that craves the wave, the fan base that employs the noise will cause opponents to fear the cheer. My sources on the team tell me the New York Jets Flight Crew will be leading some of these pregame cheers. Section 311 is going to be in the forefront of revving things up.

And I've been informed of a Jets Chant Challenge for Sunday's game. During the game, in-stadium cameras will scan the crowd for fans to lead the J-E-T-S chant. I've seen the flyers that will be distributed at the gates. The key phrase: "When the camera lands on YOU, it's your time to shine. Will you be ready?"

See you and hear you Sunday.

 

REPRESENT.