John Madden

I had plenty on my mind this week to include in the blog. Then my phone lit up with text messages and a flash from ESPN.com. 

John Madden had suddenly died. 

My editor, a non-sports fanatic unlike me, would normally have no clue who he was. Except she knew who I was talking about. Not in depth, but she knew enough about him and that he carried great importance in the sports and entertainment world. 

There are many layers to who John Madden was. Sports fans largely knew him for his work as the Head Coach of the Oakland Raiders. Or perhaps as a color commentator on ALL four TV networks—CBS, then FOX, then ABC and finally at NBC. Nobody has ever done that except for John Madden. 

Plus a whole generation of kids and parents knew him for his Madden video games—now up to Madden 22. Players like Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes II grew up playing the Xbox games and now grace the cover of Madden 22. By the way, it is the best selling video game of all time. Who would have known Play Station and Xbox but for John Madden?

Some remember him as a pitchman for Lite Beer, running through hysterical monologues and demonstrating his wild antics. He appeared in commercials for Ace Hardware, Outback Steakhouse, Verizon Wireless, Rent-A-Center, Toyota, Sirius Satellite Radio and Tinactin. Madden was the perfect spokesperson.

To me, John Madden was a football guy. In essence, he was a lifer. He was a star offensive lineman in high school. His college career was an odyssey, with stints at the College of San Mateo; the University of Oregon on a football scholarship where he was a pre-law student and was reunited with childhood friend John Robinson, who had his own share of fame as a very successful head coach at USC; a stop at Grays Harbor College; and finally ending up at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where he was all-conference at offensive tackle and played catcher on the baseball team. Madden graduated from Cal Poly with a degree in education followed by a master’s degree two years later. 

Madden was good enough to be drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in the 21st round in 1958. He injured his knee in training camp—he had injured the other knee while at Oregon—and that ended his playing career. 

His determination to play football foreshadowed what was to come in his post-playing days. Madden related that while he was rehabbing his knee injury in Philadelphia, Norm Van Brocklin, the Eagles star QB, would watch game film and Madden would explain what had happened. As such, he used his degree in teaching to mesh with his love for football. 

Madden made stops at Allan Hancock College and San Diego State before Oakland owner Al Davis hired him in 1967 as the linebackers coach. In February, 1969, Madden became head coach when John Rauch left to become the head man with Buffalo. At age 32, he was the youngest ever tp hold that position. 

His head coaching record was 103-32-7. Madden’s teams never suffered a losing season. He became the youngest coach to win 100 games, doing that in 10 years. He still has the most wins in Raiders history. And he won a Super Bowl. Impressive statistics—enough to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006.

Madden chose to retire from coaching at age 42 due to a deteriorating ulcer condition and occupational burnout. As he said at his final press conference for the Raiders, he gave it his all. 

There he was—age 42, with two sons and a wife. He needed to have a career. And TV came calling. 

First he resisted the temptation to enter the media. Instead, Madden taught a course of football viewing at the University of California. 

But as he said, if he didn’t try broadcasting while he could, he would never do it. Which led to his initial work at CBS. Quirky and with enthusiasm that was boundless, just like his gestures and rants on the sidelines as a coach, Madden ascended to the lead analyst spot with Pat Summerall in 1981. They forged a partnership that became must-see TV for football junkies. 

The duo went to FOX when CBS lost the rights to the NFC games in 1994. It gave the fledgling network instant credibility. Madden had a face-to-face meeting with Rupert Murdoch which sealed the deal; Madden’s deal paid him more than any NFL player was making. 

FOX lost billions on the NFL deal, so it cut costs and did not renew Madden’s contract. So he went to ABC, which had been hot for him prior to signing the deal with FOX. ABC paid him $5 million a year and paired him with Al Michaels on Monday Night Football. 

When NBC began its Sunday Night Football telecasts in 2006, they had Michaels and Madden in the booth. In 2008, Madden ended his 476 consecutive weekends of broadcast appearances when he voted not to travel from Jacksonville to San Diego back to Tampa by bus, his choice of transportation as he was deathly afraid of flying. 

Madden retired from TV in 2008. He won 14 Sports Emmys. He mentored the brightest and best in TV sports executives at each network. 

Moreover, he was an innovator. He explained football terminology was explained by using g a grease board and led to the invention of the Telestrator, which permitted him to diagram football plays over video footage. The Telestrator is a staple of all sports broadcasts.  

When he did Thanksgiving Day games, he would award turkey legs to players who were outstanding in the game. This led to popularizing a New Orleans restaurant which brought a “turducken”—which had turkey, stuffing sausage and duck together—to a game in the Crescent City. Madden would award drumsticks from that bird to worthy players. 

On the advice of his buddy Robinson, Madden started the “All-Madden Team.” Unlike other all star teams, this was one that the players wanted to be on, because Madden, an icon to so many NFL players, chose the members based on “…a guy who’s got a dirty uniform, mud on his face and grass in the ear hole of his helmet.”

John Madden wrote three best-selling books. He had a Bay Area radio call-in show. He was a guest host on Saturday Night Live. He popularized bus rides with his “Madden Cruiser’ in partnership with Greyhound and Motor Coach Industries, getting multiple sponsorships along the way. 

Players and coaches adored him. Brett Favre and Madden had a special bond. He mentored Bill Belichick and Bill Parcells. Seemingly there wasn’t one person affiliated with the game he loved who he wouldn’t help in some way. 

Madden was proud of his sons, who played football at Brown and Harvard. He and wife Virginia celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary the day before his death. 

John Madden was a football genius who could resonate with the everyday man. He liked to integrate himself into the fabric of the country on his bus treks back to his beloved Northern California roots. 

Like I said, I didn’t know that much about John Madden before his death other than what I saw weekly on TV during football season. In viewing parts of “All-Madden” after his death and in reading the tributes from so many people and navigating a very lengthy Wikipedia, I found there was so much more to the man who appeared to be so garrulous. 

America has lost a treasure in John Madden.