NEVER LET THE GAME INTERFERE WITH THE PARTY

February 2006

By Jetsinsider Contributing Writer S. Bracci
www.jetsinsider.com

For most of you NFL fans who follow the league, it's no surprise that the NY Jets suffered through a disaster of a 4 - 12 season this year. Losing the starting QB Chad Pennington was bad enough, but then seven plays later the back up QB, veteran Jay Fiedler goes down in the same game. Not only did that leave the coaches scrambling for another starting QB in week four of the football season, the hits just kept on coming for the Jets. By week nine the team had eleven key players on injured reserve and by some estimates, over $125 million in NFL salaries sitting on the sidelines. Nothing can be more depressing than seeing your favorite LB's, Center and OT's reduced to towel waving on the bench like a bunch of high school cheerleaders.

A sad season indeed for these fans and not much to cheer about, yet the die-hard gang green and vigilant crew of the Troop 16H Tailgate Party would not be dissuaded from their yearly ritual. The "General" and owner of Troop

16H, Randy Lee, still got up at the crack of dawn and rolled out his deuce & a half truck along with a five ton transporter to make the early trek to the Meadowlands and set up his tailgate party next to the parking lot marker known as 16H. Included in that set up for 300 of his closest Jet fans and friends is the Pat Tillman Foundation raffle bucket.

The crowd got smaller as the home games played into December, but the few & the faithful still emptied their pockets, wrote their names on dollar bills and dropped them into that bucket without hesitation. The prize raffles and opposing team's jersey burning prior to kick off was a highlight of fun for everyone in attendance and Troop 16H never wavered in their efforts to raise money for Pat's Leadership Through Action™ Program. It is that very type of due diligence and refusal to give up hope in the face of defeat that I think Pat himself would have appreciated and understood all too well.

Now that pro football is thankfully over for the Jet collective, one can only marvel at the dedication in which the loyal fans have shown throughout. With their continued generosity and undying support during all eight home games this season, it afforded Troop 16H to collect over $2,600 for the Pat Tillman Foundation.

The future of the Jets does look brighter with a whole new coaching staff, a new general manager and a handful of top round picks coming out of this year's draft to join the veteran players in green and white, but ask any die-hard Jet fan what he or she thinks about the team's prospects for this year and they will tell you two things. One, players & coaches come and go, but the fans are forever. Two, the Troop 16H Tailgate Party will always be there in full force and never let the game interfere with the party.