Forty years ago, the 1969 New York Jets won the third Super Bowl, beating the Baltimore Colts by a score of 16-9. It is one of the most unexpected outcomes in American football history. The Jets, the champions of the American Football League (a rival to the powerful National Football League), had beaten the champions of the NFL. The 2009 New York Jets wear a similar
uniform to that of the 1969 team.

A new professional football league (the United Football League), recently began its inaugural season. While we are years away from any team in the UFL beating an NFL team, there are some similarities between now and the year the Jets shocked the sports world.

Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. That announcement shocked the entire world. Robert Kennedy, assassinated in 1968, might have won the same award for his work for peace and with the impoverished. There have been many words written about the world we would have had if Kennedy hadn’t been shot. Undoubtedly, the Vietnam War would have ended sooner and the poor would have had a more vocal advocate. This didn’t happen.

Barack Obama is not Robert Kennedy. However, the excitement he created during the last election must be similar to what was present in 1968 when Kennedy announced his candidacy and went on his cross-country whistle-stop tour. Both candidates mobilized voters who had remained silent for too long. They spoke about issues were important to everyone, except politicians. Both spoke about ending unpopular wars. Only one of them has the opportunity to do so.

Barack Obama has the opportunity to finish what Robert Kennedy began forty years ago. His pace, too slow for some, is necessary for what he is trying to do. It takes time for community outreach—especially in a community as large as the United States. An organization as august as the Nobel Selection Committee has recognized what Obama is attempting to do.

Even with the Health Care debate and unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan unresolved, this is a time for optimism. The spirit of a Kennedy lives on in the personage of our president. Here’s hoping he can see these goals to fruition. That’ll really shock the world.