Jets' Joe Klecko ends 35-year Pro Football Hall of Fame wait

Joe Klecko was tangled up with an offensive lineman during a New York Jets game when fists, elbows and cusses started flying.

The scrum came to an abrupt end when Marty Lyons, Klecko's concerned teammate, ran up behind the big defensive lineman, put him in a bear hug and pulled him from the fracas.

It was the last time Lyons ever did that.

“He grabbed me and he said, ‘You ever do that again, I’ll kick your (butt) right here in front of everybody,’” Lyons said, chuckling at the memory from more than 40 years ago. “He says, ‘You either fight with me or you leave me alone.’ And right then and there, I knew I had a guy in the foxhole with me.

“If I ever got into a fight, No. 73 would come in there and he’d take those big hands and fingers and he’d just throw people.”

Toughness, unmatched versatility, brute strength and unwavering loyalty were the hallmarks of a 12-year Hall of Fame career for Klecko, who was the heart of the Jets' “New York Sack Exchange” in the 1980s while teaming with Lyons, Mark Gastineau and Abdul Salaam on a dominant D-line.

“I grew up in the streets of a tough town and I used to get my butt kicked when I was a kid,” said the 69-year-old Klecko, who was raised in Chester, Pennsylvania. “Fighting was part of life. And I didn’t feel like there was anybody out there that I was going to take it from. I never made that my badge of courage or something like that.

"It's just how I played the game.”

Klecko was a favorite among fans — many of whom still wear his jersey at games — and his teammates for his big plays, vicious sacks and constant support for his guys. He was the first, and still the only, player in NFL history to be selected to the Pro Bowl at three positions on the defensive line: end, tackle and nose tackle.

“The only thing that was important to me at the time, really, was winning,” Klecko said. “Wherever I played or played hurt or whatever I did, I did for us to win the football game.”

Klecko's induction into pro football's shrine in Canton, Ohio, on Saturday comes 35 years after he played his last NFL snap. He made it in as a senior candidate; Lyons and many others Klecko played with and against deemed the honor long overdue.

“The people in Canton finally woke up,” said Lyons, whom Klecko chose to present him at the induction ceremony.

In early February, Klecko was at home in Colts Neck, New Jersey, with his wife, Debbie, waiting for lunch to be delivered when someone knocked on the door.

It wasn't the deli guy, though. It was Broadway Joe.

Joe Namath was decked out in his gold Hall of Fame jacket with a camera crew behind him to welcome Klecko into Canton.

Finally.

“Every time I turn the corner or I talk to someone, I go into someone’s office that I do business with, it’s, ‘Hey, Joe, congratulations,’” Klecko said. "It’s overwhelming in that way. It’s something we've hoped for for a long time.

“The Hall of Fame — wow. It’s pretty ... cool.”

Klecko was a sixth-round draft pick by the Jets out of Temple in 1977 and quickly became a force on New York's defense as the anchor of the “Sack Exchange.” He was twice selected an All-Pro and led the NFL with 20 1/2 sacks in 1981, the year before the statistic was officially recognized by the league.

While Gastineau's flashy sack dancing antics drew more attention, Klecko's battles up front with O-linemen have become the stuff of legend. Fellow Pro Football Hall of Famers Dwight Stephenson, Anthony Muñoz, Joe DeLamielleure and John Hannah have raved for years about how Klecko was nearly impossible to block during his prime.

“Those are guys I played against and respected and they respected me back," Klecko said. “But there were also guys who wanted to step in and cheap shot you and run his mouth and think they were the toughest guy in the world. Well, they came to the wrong party.”

And Klecko, of course, would let them know about it.

“You had to go through Joe,” Lyons said. “This was Joe’s team in the '80s. It was all about Joe, but Joe made it all about everybody else. He held everybody accountable.”

Klecko played 11 seasons with the Jets before one final year in the NFL with Indianapolis in 1988. He was the third member of the Jets to have his number retired, after Namath and Don Maynard, in 2004. Klecko was inducted as an inaugural member of the Jets' Ring of Honor six years later.

After decades of waiting comes the ultimate football honor, with Klecko's daughter-in-law Billie planning a week of activities for the entire family in Canton.

And it'll be capped with Klecko completing his Hall of Fame journey by taking the stage in his own gold jacket and standing next to his bronze bust — likely serenaded with loud “J-E-T-S” chants.

“Even though it has taken so long, it’s such a gratifying feeling,” Klecko said. “There’s no doubt.”