The ritual is understood.
Mark Sanchez’s family gathers before every Jets game. They all find their seats at the stadium, get comfortable and wait with nervous anticipation for kickoff.
That’s about when Mark’s father, Nick Sanchez, makes his getaway.
It’s nothing personal. Just his routine. His ritual.
Nick Sanchez Sr., who has never missed one of his son’s games despite the entire family living in California, craves his own personal space while watching Mark play.
So every game, he disappears from the family seats and wanders around the stadium until he has gravitated to the highest, worst open seat in the house he can find.
He isn’t one of those parents who wears his son’s jersey to games.
“I don’t even own one,” Nick Sr. said from California yesterday.
He simply wants to blend into the fabric of the crowd.
“He’s probably got the most expensive bad seat in the stadium on a regular basis,” said Nick Jr., the eldest of the three Sanchez brothers.
“Mark always makes sure he has a ticket for him, so we have a seat for him, but he doesn’t spend much time there because he’s usually gone before kickoff.”
Nick Jr. recalled one USC game at the L.A. Coliseum two years ago when he tried to spot his father in the crowd.
“I think I spotted him at the very top row on the other side of the stadium,” he said. “I saw some guy that looked like him in the last possible row leaning against the wall. It was the worst seat I’ve ever seen.”
Brandon Sanchez, the middle son, has found himself amused by his father’s game-day ritual, but he’s used to it.
“He sits as high in rafters as he can, finds some nook or cranny where he can sit and go through his emotions,” Brandon said. “He goes off in the stands and sits by himself so he can yell under his breath and no one can hear him. I guess it’s anxiety, nervousness.
“We all come to the game together and he’ll get his [second] wife [Maddy] situated and he’ll say, ‘OK, I’ll see you after the game. That’s ‘SOP’ — standard operating procedure. He’s been doing that since Mark was at USC. I don’t even know where he sits. I think he tries to get as far away as possible.”
Nick Sr., whose “SOP” each game is to have a quick word with Mark before the game and tell him, “I love you,” insisted it’s nothing personal.
“Typically, I say hello to everyone, tell them I’ll see them after the game,” he said. “Then I try to find the farthest, most out-of-the-way place I can possibly get to. Then it’s a matter of finding a seat. This last game [in Indianapolis] I was displaced three times.
“I just like to sit in solitude amongst a horde of people [and] concentrate on the game. I’m not one to get up and cheer and carry emotions on my sleeve. No one ever knows who I am or where I belong. I can secretly pray and do things a dad does whether his youngster has a part in a school play or it’s third-and-7 at the 30 in the Meadowlands.”
When Nick Folk made his game-winning field goal in the Jets’ win over the Colts, Nick Sr. said, “I gave a very, very small fist pump and said to myself, ‘Yes.’ At that point the fans around me figured out I wasn’t a Colts fan.”
Each member of the Sanchez family has his or her own quirk to combat the nerves that come with watching Mark play.
To his mother, Olga Macias, who was divorced from Nick Sr. when Mark was a young boy, that’s her youngest son out there being chased by behemoths trying to smash him.
“I see these 350-pounders coming at him and I cringe,” Olga said. “I think about the Manning brothers [Peyton and Eli] and I can’t even imagine what it’s like for Mrs. Manning when the Giants and Colts play against each other. I think, ‘Wow, I just have one, she’s got double.’ “
To Brandon and Nick Jr., it’s their little bro out there, the kid they used to beat on when he was younger.
Nick Sr., who estimates he’s flown nearly 100,000 miles this year, and Brandon have been to every one of Mark’s NFL games. Olga has missed only two games in two years. Nick Jr., who’s married and has a 4-year-old son, said he gets to about half of the games — enough, however, that his son has “Elite” status on Continental Airlines.
“I’m going to be 61 and this is the first time I’ve ever had any kind of status anything and my grandson has status at age 4,” Olga joked.
Nick Sr. has his travel quirks, too. Despite the fact his son is in the second year of a $50 million contract, he seeks out the cheapest airfare possible to the games, even if it means eschewing non-stop flights for ones with stops that are cheaper.
“My dad is not afraid to search out the ultimate deal; that’s his gift,” Nick Jr. joked. “If the Jets were playing in Phoenix, he might connect through Atlanta to save $200.”
That’s who Nick Sanchez Sr., a lifelong firefighter, is, though. Those grounded values are what raised his three successful sons to be who they are today.
mcannizzaro@nypost.com