Before the turn of the new year, the NFL and the football community lost one of the greatest coaches of all time, a broadcasting legend, a Hall of Famer, a great human being, and the face of one of the most iconic NFL video game series.
John Madden passed away on December 28, 2021, at the age of 85.
He gained fame in a decade-long stint as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders, making it to seven AFC title games and winning Super Bowl XI. Throughout his career, his Raiders compiled a 103-32-7 regular season record, and his .759 winning percentage is the best among coaches who coached more than 100 games. His teams have never had a losing record.
“Few individuals meant as much to the growth and popularity of professional football as Coach Madden, whose impact on the game both on and off the field was immeasurable,” the Raiders said in a statement.
The statement was released hours before team owner Mark Davis lit the Al Davis Torch in honor of Madden, the first person to ever light the torch.
“Tonight, I light the torch in honor of and tribute to John Madden and Al Davis, who declared that the fire that burns the brightest in the Raiders Organization is the will to win,” said Mark Davis.
It was his broadcasting career that made him a household name. He entertained football fans with his use of interjections like “Boom!” and “Doink!” in games, used the telestrator on broadcasts, was an ubiquitous pitchman selling restaurants, hardware stores and beer, and was the face of Madden NFL Football, the most successful football video game of all time.
“Today, we lost a hero,” EA Sports, the brand behind the Madden franchise, said in a statement. “John Madden was synonymous with the sport of football for more than 50 years. His knowledge of the game was second only to his love for it, and his appreciation for everyone that stepped on the gridiron. A humble champion, a willing teacher, and forever a coach. Our hearts and sympathies go out to John’s family, friends, and millions of fans. He will be greatly missed, always remembered, and never forgotten.”
Madden was the main color analyst for the majority of his three decades in the broadcast booth, winning 16 Emmy Awards for outstanding sports analyst/personality and covered 11 Super Bowls for four networks from 1979 to 2009.
“People always ask, ‘Are you a coach or a broadcaster or a video game guy?’” answered Madden when he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006. “I’m a coach, always been a coach.”
“He was first and foremost a coach,” said Hall of Fame president Jim Porter. “He was a coach on the field, a coach in the broadcast booth and a coach in life. The Hall of Fame will forever guard Coach Madden’s legacy. The Hall of Fame flag will be flown at half-staff in his memory.”
Madden’s broadcasting career started at CBS after leaving coaching, mostly in part of his fear of flying. He and Pat Summerall became the network’s top announcing duo.
Madden later gave Fox credibility as a major network when he moved there in 1994, going on to call primetime games at ABC and NBC with Al Michaels before retiring after the Steelers’ thrilling 27-23 win in Super Bowl XLIII over the Cardinals.
He earned a place in the hearts of football fans with a style around a sports world of salaries and stars. He rode from game to game on the bus because he suffered from claustrophobia in the airplane.
For a time, he gave out the famed “turducken”—a chicken stuffed inside of a duck stuffed inside of a turkey—to the most valuable player of the Thanksgiving game he called.
“John Madden was an iconic figure, transitioning from a successful coach to one of the most impactful and distinctive broadcasters in history, across all genres,” said ESPN chairman James Pitaro. “His love of football was only matched by the fans’ admiration for him. He will forever be synonymous with the game.”
“Nobody loved football more than Coach. He was football,” said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in a statement. “He was an incredible sounding board to me and so many others. There will never be another John Madden, and we will forever be indebted to him for all he did to make football and the NFL what it is today.”
When Madden retired from broadcasting, his colleagues praised his passion for the sport, his preparation, and his ability to explain a complicated game in realistic terms.
“He was so much more than just football—a keen observer of everything around him and a man who could carry on a smart conversation about hundreds and hundreds of topics,” said Al Michaels, who was Madden’s broadcast partner for seven years on ABC and NBC. “The term ‘Renaissance man’ is tossed around a little too loosely these days, but John was as close as you can come.”
“For me, TV is really an extension of coaching,” Madden, who also was a best-selling author, wrote in “Hey, Wait a Minute! (I Wrote a Book!)).”
“My knowledge of football has come from coaching,” he said. “And on TV, all I’m trying to do is pass on some of that knowledge to viewers.”
Al Davis brought in Madden to the Raiders to be their linebackers coach in 1967, and then went to the Super Bowl in his first year with them. He took over John Rauch as their head coach after the 1968 season, which sparked a memorable 10-year run. With his demonstrative attitude and his scruffy look on the sideline, he was the ideal coach for the collection of misfits that made up those Raiders teams.
“Sometimes guys were disciplinarians in things that didn’t make any difference,” Madden once said. “I was a disciplinarian in jumping offsides; I hated that. Being in bad position and missing tackles, those things. I wasn’t, ‘Your hair has to be combed.’”
“I always thought his strong suit was his style of coaching,” former Raiders QB and franchise legend Ken Stabler once said. “John just had a great knack for letting us be what we wanted to be, on the field and off the field. ... How do you repay him for being that way? You win for him.”
Indeed, those Raiders teams won for him.
In his first season, Madden was 12-1-1, losing the AFC Championship Game 17-7 to the Chiefs. History would repeat itself several times, as the Raiders would win the division title in seven of his first eight season but went 1-6 in the AFC Championship Game in that span.
Madden’s Raiders played some of the most memorable games of the 1970s that helped change the league’s rules. One of the most famous plays was the “Holy Roller” in 1978, then Stabler fumbled forward on purpose before being sacked on the final play. The ball rolled and was batted in the end zone before Dave Casper made the recovery in the end zone for the game-winning touchdown against the Chargers.
The most famous game was one that went against the Raiders in the 1972 playoffs. Leading 7-6 with 22 seconds left, the Steelers faced 4th & 10 from their own 40. Terry Bradshaw threw a desperation pass deflected off either one of the Raiders’ Jack Tatum or the Steelers’ Frenchy Fuqua to Franco Harris, who caught it on his show tops and got in for a Steelers touchdown.
Back then, a pass that deflects off an offensive player directly to a teammate was illegal, and the debate continues on whether the ball bounced off of Tatum or Fuqua. The catch was dubbed the “Immaculate Reception.”
They finally got over the hump in 1976 with a loaded team featuring Stabler, wide receivers Fred Biletnikoff and Cliff Branch, tight end Dave Casper, Hall of Fame offensive linemen Gene Upshaw and Art Shell, and a defense featuring Willie Brown, Ted Hendricks, Tatum, John Matuszak, Otis Sistrunk and George Atkinson.
They went 13-1 that season, with the only loss coming on a blowout in Week 4 against the Patriots. They got their payback on them with a 24-21 win in their first playoff game and got over the hump in the AFC Championship Game with a 24-7 win over the Steelers, who went through a heap of injuries. The Raiders won it all in Super Bowl XI, blasting the Vikings, 32-14.
“Players loved playing for him,” said Shell. “He made it fun for us in camp and fun for us in the regular season. All he asked is that we be on time and play like hell when it was time to play.”
Madden’s players loved him, though they would often make fun of him for his pregame prep talks—word salads that, when analyzed, didn’t really make sense. So his guys anticipated what he would say before the most important game of his career. One time, he said, “Don’t worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagons.”
The closing line before the Super Bowl, however, was very crystal clear: “Gentlemen, this is going to be the single biggest event in any of your lives—as long as you win. Go get ‘em.”
Back in 1968, Frank Cooney, a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner, approached Madden, who at that time was the Raiders’ linebackers coach. Others with the Examiner were talking about how Madden was forced to step away from the game in his early 20s but was on the road to becoming one of the greatest coaches of all time.
“He’s really good at explaining things,” one coach told Cooney.
Cooney asked Madden if they could talk. “Only off the record,” replied Madden. Cooney was awestruck by the conversation—Madden was as sharp as advertised. He noticed the little things about players and the bigger things about the game of football. Most of what he said exceeded his specific coaching obligations and went more into the philosophy of roster construction, play calling, and motivating his guys to get better every game.
Another memorable moment came in 1977, when Madden walked up to his 5th round draft pick, All-American safety Lester Hayes, and told him he would play at cornerback.
At that time, Hayes begrudgingly switched from linebacker to safety at Texas A&M. The last thing he wanted was to play at a position where he doesn’t hit people. Madden then told him to play at corner.
“I started bawling like a newborn baby,” said Hayes.
Hayes was begging with Madden to reconsider his options, even during evening practice. Madden was firm with his stance, but gently told Hayes that he was a former Texas prep sprint champion and it would translate to him playing better one-on-one with wideouts. He also promised Hayes that he would still have plenty of opportunities to knock ball carriers off their feet from his new position.
“There was something in his eyes that made me trust him,” said Hayes. “John has the ability to see something in people that they didn’t know existed. Thank God he saw it in me.”
Hayes would go on to win Defensive Player of the Year in 1980 and was on the NFL’s all-decade team in the 80s as a cornerback.
Before his first broadcast, he was stunned at a production meeting when the crew laid out the schedule before the game. “When do we go to watch the teams practice?” he asked.
The producers explained that TV broadcast teams don’t really go to practice.
“Why not?” asked Madden. “I’m going to be talking about these guys for three hours this weekend. I want to see them up close.”
Again, the producers explained that it wasn’t how things worked in the relationship between NFL teams and production crews. They told him they could get him film from TV games from teams from earlier in the season. Madden insisted that was not good enough.
Madden was told that usually the broadcast teams usually sit with the PR people from both teams to get an outlook of both teams. Madden also said that wasn’t good enough.
“Nope,” said Madden. “I’ll talk to the coaches.”
From that point onward, Madden’s broadcast teams went to practice, spoke directly with players and coaches, and were given the same film coaching staffs used. Within six months, this eventually became standard practice for TV crews.
In 1984, Trip Hawkins had an idea for a football video game. The founder of EA Sports requested an audience with Madden, and he got a strange reply: “Yes, you can meet with John from Dec. 16-18, but it will be on an Amtrak train for three days. You will meet him in Denver and ride west.”
Because of his refusal to fly, Madden was traveling to his next assignment by train.
“It was never the actual plane that was the problem for John,” said longtime producer Bob Stenner, who produced eight Super Bowls and won 11 Emmys in his 50-year network career. “It was his claustrophobia.”
Hawkins and some developers for the new video game series met Madden in the train’s dining car. Madden had a cigar in his mouth, staying there for the next three days as they held what would be the most important video game meeting ever held. He never lit the cigar—he loved cigars, but not smoking them—so as hours went by, the wet cigar began disintegrating, one piece at a time.
Hawkins warned him that the technology was not there yet for 11-on-11 football. “We can probably only get 7-on-7 to fit on screen,” Hawkins said.
Madden loved the idea of a football game, but not the idea of a 7-on-7. “That’s not real football,” he said, waving a dismissive hand through the air as a chunk of a cigar flew off.
Hawkins warned that it could take years to build a game that squeezed 22 players on the screen.
“Then it will take years,” said Madden.
It took two years for the first Madden NFL game to be developed and published.
Right after the EA team met Madden for the first time, they went back to their train cars in disbelief at Madden’s deployment of swear words.
“I’m not exaggerating, I think every word out of his mouth is an F-bomb,” said Hawkins. “He is incredibly profane. That’s one of the signatures of how smart John is. To have the self-discipline to never do that on the air, and it’s remarkable. He knows how to switch over to a completely different vocabulary.”
Another time, the Fox production team was struggling during a game. Graphics were late. Camera angles were off. He caught the confusion in his ear. He hit the cough button and said, “You f***ers are missing a good game out here.”
Before one game in the mid-1980s, Madden had his first pregame session with a makeup artist. The artist told him it would help reduce glare for the camera, that it was necessary. As the makeup artist worked on him, Madden said, “You really think it’s gonna make me look better? This is like putting frosting on s***.”
In the mid-1990s, Fox was in the middle of a pre-production meeting. Madden was on the telestrator showing the crew how he planned to break down a play before the kickoff. He drew all over the field, mapping out which players had to do on the play, and slapped on a line where the first down was located.
“Why can’t we just keep a first-down line on the screen the whole game?” he asked.
Everybody shrugged. Somebody said it would be too distracting. Somebody else said the technology wouldn’t allow it.
“You’re wrong—we should do it,” said Madden, shaking his head.
Producers in the room started to wonder if Madden was right. “The yellow line is a direct descendant of that moment,” said Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks, a longtime Madden crew producer who was in that room that day.
Madden loved asking his crew about their athletic careers. One time, he asked Stenner with questions about his baseball career. Stenner was good, and he was proud of the way he could read fly balls off the bat and immediately get back to the right spot. “Sort of how DiMaggio used to get back,” said Stenner. He realized the mistake and tried to keep going.
“Wait—did you just compare yourself to Joe DiMaggio?” Madden asked.
“Oh no, of course not, that’d be ridiculous,” answered Stenner.
For three decades, whenever Stenner walked into a room with Madden, Madden would say, “Hey, look everybody, it’s DiMaggio.”
Before Super Bowl XXI in 1987 between the Broncos and Giants, producer Michael Frank was in charge of getting the tape from both teams, so he got the broadcasts of both conference title games. Madden didn’t like that—he wanted only the coaches’ film.
Somebody got ahold of the NFC Championship Game tape, so they just needed the AFC tape. Frank was handed the task of going to the Giants’ team hotel to get a copy of the tape Giants coaches were using to scout the Broncos. When he got there, he was ushered into a conference room.
After a few minutes, he heard footsteps and in walked... Giants head coach Bill Parcells.
“You really screwed up, huh?” said Parcells.
Frank said yes—that he needed a copy of the coaches’ film of the Broncos. Parcells sighed. “We only have one copy,” he said, staring at Frank for an awkward five seconds.
“You know what?” Parcells finally said. “I’d do anything for John. Take this.”
Parcells went 12-19-1 in his first two seasons with the Giants, and anxious fans wanted him fired. Madden spoke up consistently to say that Parcells was going to be a really good coach—that he needed time. Parcells thought it made a huge difference keeping the temperature of his seat at a reasonable level.
He handed Frank the film and made him vow to protect it with his life. But on his way back to the production team’s hotel, Frank started to suspect Madden called Parcells and put him up to it. “I think maybe he was just giving me a hard time,” said Frank.
During the mid-1980s, Madden constantly was assigned to NFC East games, so he decided to get an apartment in New York City. He settled on The Dakota in Manhattan, buying Gilda Radner’s old apartment in the complex, which became infamous after John Lennon was shot there days earlier.
Within a few years, Madden would become the complex’s mascot. The Madden Cruiser would pull up, and singer Roberta Flack would hustle to get onboard for a few minutes. Sometimes, he would hang out in the courtyard, going through his notes for NFL games, and more than once, Fox crew members would show up to meet with him and he would sit there with a friend and her son.
The woman would say hello and excuse herself, and then Yoko Ono would take Sean Lennon to their apartment so Madden can work.
Another morning, Madden and his agent, Sandy Montag, were having breakfast at the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton Chicago. While eating, a man came up to their table. He had a thick British accent and told Madden that in the UK, they were limited to one NFL broadcast per week, and it rotated between networks.
“I only watch the games you do, John,” said the man.
Madden, who was used to fans approaching him in public, thanked him and waved him goodbye. “That guy had big glasses and a big attitude,” Madden noted after he was out of audible range. Montag had a quirky look on his face.
“That was Elton John,” said Montag.
In the mid-1980s, CBS had a one-week grind for Madden: A Sunday game in Atlanta, a show in Las Vegas during the week, and then back to DC for another NFL game.
But no matter how hard CBS tried, they couldn’t get together a train and car schedule for Madden. So they got him to borrow Dolly Parton’s tour bus for a week. He loved it, and CBS loved that he loved it. He then got the idea for the Madden Cruiser.
In 1981, Madden and Summerall began a run of 22 straight Thanksgiving football games. As a token of appreciation to the production crews, the network began putting together an annual banquet a day or two before the game to say thanks.
Everyone enjoyed the concept, and the first few went as advertised. But Madden was bothered by one thing: What about the refs? The officials were sacrificing their time away from families to put on a football game. So, Madden requested to CBS if they could attend the feast. From that day on, the refs ate, too.
Early in the 1994 season, Madden was obsessed with the OJ Simpson murder trial. Everyone who boarded the bus was asked about their opinion on the case. Madden just had an early cellphone installed on the Cruiser. He would call his friends down in LA like Fred Dryer or Wayne Gretzky on their opinions on the trial.
At one point, Madden was introduced to Vincent Bugliosi, who famously prosecuted Charles Manson. Madden immediately added Bugliosi to his frequent caller list, and he would call the ex-prosecutor every day and put him on the speakerphone.
“John treated that trial like a football game,” said Stenner.
Madden would ask Bugliosi about gameplans from Marcia Clark and Johnnie Cochran and what developed in the courtroom. Madden was psyched up about why Judge Lance Ito allowed Simpson to try on the glove while wearing another glove. “Of course it didn’t fit—he had two gloves on!” said Madden.
Bugliosi liked chatting along. He was basically John Madden’s legal John Madden.
Stenner would go on to become one of Madden’s closest confidants, but at the time when he checked into his first hotel room as a member of the Madden production team, he wasn’t sure how to connect with his new boss.
He knew why they were camping in Chicago—Madden loved to park his Cruiser at the Ritz-Carlton as they waited for next weekend’s assignment. But he didn’t know why the whole crew was required to say on the 12th floor... until he left his room and went to the elevator for the first time.
There was Madden on the hotel couch, waving him over. “Bob! How’s it going?” Stenner sat down beside Madden, and they started talking, mostly about football.
The conversation went for a good 20 minutes until somebody else from the crew got off the elevator. Madden said hello, and it was clear that Stenner could now leave, with the new guy replacing him on the couch.
Throughout the years, Stenner began to see that couch for what it was—a comfortable place for Madden to sit down and chat with others, a warm spot in what could sometimes be a lonely life of bus rides and broadcast booths. Madden needed the couch.
“You were captives,” said Stenner. “You had to stop and talk to him for a while, and everybody wanted to, anyway. He loved to just hang out and B.S.”
In late 1996, Madden and Summerall came to NOLA to broadcast a Saints game. A New Orleans radio personality mentioned that someone ought to introduce Madden to the turducken, a Louisiana-invented meat of duck and chicken stuffed into a turkey.
Word filtered to Madden. Later, local restauranteur Glenn Mistich got a call. Madden wanted to try the turducken. At that time, Mistich sold about 200 turduckens a year, almost all of which were purchased by locals around Thanksgiving. He jumped at the chance to show one of the nation’s leading TV connoisseurs to the turducken.
He went to the Superdome before the Saints game that Sunday with a beautiful turducken—all three birds deboned, with sausage and cornbread dressing and a gravy made from the meat juices.
There is one problem, however: Mistich forgot to bring any plates or silverware. Somebody in the booth rounded up some paper plates, but they couldn’t find any forks or knives. So, Madden simply reached into the turducken and tore off a piece, and ate it with his bare hands.
He loved it. And as he was raving to Mistich about the turducken, Saints owner Tom Benson walked in to the booth to say hello. Benson stuck out his hand, and Madden had to make a quick decision on what to do with his turducken fingers. He quickly licked them and shook Benson’s hand. “That’s the last time Tom Benson ever spoke to me,” Madden once said.
The turducken would eventually become the official All-Madden team food and was featured prominently every Thanksgiving by Madden and Summerall. Within a few years, Mistich went from selling 200 turduckens per year to shipping 6,000 annually all over the world.
“I had to hire people just to deal with turducken orders,” said Mistich.
A few years ago, out of the blue, boxes of chocolate began arriving to his house every December. The note would always read, “Thanks for thinking of us all these years. John Madden.”
“John Madden changed my life, and my family’s lives, forever,” said Mistich. “And he’s sending me chocolates?”
On September 11th, 2001, Peggy Fleming was giving a speech in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, when the news broke out of the terrorist attacks that day. The Olympic figure skating legend just finished talking at the breast cancer awareness fundraiser and went back to her hotel. She connected with her agent at IMG, who said it was not going to be possible to get home to California anytime soon.
She didn’t think she can drive across the country by herself on a rental car. For five days, she stayed in a hotel at Wilkes-Barre. Then, by surprise, her agent called her with great news: John Madden, another client in the agency, was on his way to California from New York in his Cruiser. He offered to pick her up.
On September 17th, the Cruiser pulled up to the hotel. Fleming had her luggage with her, jokingly stuck her thumb up. The doors opened, and Madden swing his head out. “Get in!” he yelled.
She got in and spent the next 52 hours watching coverage of the terrorist attacks and talked about winning a gold medal, surviving breast cancer, family, everything. They were struck by the signs of a unified country—flags on cars, farmers painting their barns red, white and blue, the national anthem playing at gas stations on the way.
“It was such a scary, uncertain time,” she recalled. “We didn’t know what the future held. But I had my big new buddy, John Madden, and it felt so safe on that bus.”
Fleming was amazed by how efficient operation was of the Madden Cruiser. Two drivers alternated for the entire trip with only occasional stops to eat or stretch their legs. They put up a curtain at night and made up the fold-out couch in the middle of the bus for Fleming, then Madden would say goodnight and head for his bedroom in the back.
When the arrived at Omaha, Madden and Fleming got to eat and hit some shops. Fleming mentioned she wasn’t loving the current state of her hair and wished she had something to cover it up. Madden said, “Peggy, let me buy you a hat.” She picked a black felt cowboy hat. Madden insisted on paying for it, and she wore it the rest of the trip.
A few days later, the bus arrived at Pleasanton, California, and Fleming’s husband was waiting for her. They were hanging out for an hour or two, but soon, it was time to go. Madden shook hands with Fleming, and she headed home to Los Gatos. She still puts on the cowboy hat from time to time, which was a reminder of an unlikely new friend.
“He’ll always be my buddy,” she said.
One time at the annual NFL owners meetings, Madden met up for a Mexican dinner with his old friend, Hall of Fame general manager Bobby Beathard. They cared a lot about each other, but they couldn’t do anything without turning it into a skills competition.
That night, Madden told the server they wanted to start with chips and salsa. “Make sure it’s hot salsa,” he said. She brought out the chips, and Beathard and Madden both ate. The salsa was hot, but they both kept telling each other, “They call that hot?”
athard asked for salsa that had more kick to it, and soon enough, another bowl arrived. Madden and Beathard kept plowing through, and kept staring at each other. Both men’s eyes were watering, and were constantly cleaning their mouths with napkins and chugged water. “That was nothing,” said Madden, barely able to get the words out of his mouth. Beathard looked like he was going to vomit but nodded.
“Got anything that is hotter?” asked Madden.
The woman brought out a third bowl of salsa, and everybody at the table got out of the salsa challenge except for Madden and Beathard. They finished the third bowl of salsa, both red-faced and panting.
One common theme among Madden’s friends is how good he has been at reading people. “He’s like Sherlock Holmes, the way he could look at somebody and perfectly dissect everything about them,” said David Hill, who hired Madden at Fox.
One time, Madden leaned over and whispered into his producer Eric Shanks’ ear. “Don’t do business with that guy you were just talking to.”
“Why?” asked Shanks, who invented the RedZone channel as Executive Vice President of DirecTV before becoming Fox Sports CEO in 2010.
“His shoelaces aren’t tied right,” said Madden. “He’s not paying enough attention to something that could really trip him up. He cuts corners.”
Still, to this day, before Shanks makes a deal, he likes to take a quick look at the shoelaces first.
On Christmas Day of 2021, Madden gathered his close family and friends around his TV at 2 PM to watch a documentary of him and his life, “All Madden,” on Fox. He wanted to watch it with the people he loved the most.
As he sat down in his big chair in the Madden TV room, his wife, Virginia, and sone, their spouses and his grandkids gathered around and watched the documentary. They had no idea that for most of them, it was the last time they’d share with their beloved patriarch.
And it was a good time. Over 90 minutes, the story of Madden’s life unfolded, beginning with the injured lineman who was forced away from the game, became a coaching legend, stunned the world by walking away 10 years later, then shocked the world even more by becoming the biggest broadcaster and video game icon in sports history.
It was a huge moment for many in the room. Most of the documentary was centered around a July shoot with Madden at his home studio, where he sat in a chair and watched video of his family and football personalities talk about him. On Christmas, his loved ones watched Madden watch himself as he watched the final product. On the screen, he had a beaming smile on his face. In the room, his smile was bigger.
When the film ended, Madden asked every person in the room what they thought, even the kids.
Everyone loved the documentary. After everyone spoke, it was Madden’s turn. Everyone waited. In his final years, his hearing wasn’t great, which impacted his voice. So he chose his words carefully, then worked hard to broadcast them out.
“I loved it, too,” Madden finally said. “And we got to share it, together.”
The day after, he and Virginia celebrated their 62nd anniversary together. But two days after the celebration, he was gone.
While family and friends spent the next two days mourning his loss, there were a lot of smiles about the Christmas Day screening. Like every moment in his life. He once again picked the perfect moment to say goodbye.
Madden wanted to be known as a coach. He insisted that the Hall of Fame voters evaluate him as a coach, without the “other stuff” as he would sometimes refer to his times as a broadcaster, product pitchman, and Esports innovator.
When he was named the Raiders’ head coach at 32 years old, it was a shocker at that time, but as an assistant on the Raiders under John Rauch, Madden was beloved and respected by an old-school roster.
One thing serving him well in the locker room, and later the booth, was his ability to weaponize his physical stature. He was 6’ 4”, 250 pounds, with a booming voice. He demanded the best of his players, but he was also a sociable personality, who laughed a lot more than he yelled, but when he did yell, everyone listened.
In his first year as the Raiders’ head coach, Madden saw some quotes in the newspaper from linebacker Phil Villapiano. The Raiders were playing the 49ers in a preseason game, and Villapiano told the paper, “Who cares about the 49ers? I’m more worried about organizing our team air hockey tournament.”
Madden marched out of his office and shouted at Villapiano in front of the whole team. “Who the f*** do you think you are? This is professional football. I don’t ever want to hear crap like that again.”
It was jarring for the Raiders under their new coach, and Madden later told Villapiano that yes, he was a little mad about the air hockey quotes and the spotty team work ethic that August. But he was mostly looking for the right time to assert himself as a young coach, and Villapiano had it printed out for him on the front page on that day’s sports section.
“We all loved John,” said Villapiano. “But when he did have to raise his voice—which wasn’t often—it had tremendous power. It shut you right up, and he always knew when to use that.”
Villapiano loves the end of the air hockey story because it showed the window into Madden’s ability to read rooms. Next season, the Raiders were scuffling through the preseason, pushing to their hardest but fighting amongst themselves and having no fun at all that August.
Madden called Villapiano into his office and said, “Hey, what’s going on with the air hockey tournament? This team needs it.”
Madden coached a remarkable 10-year run with the Raiders, part of an organization that would eventually have 12 future Hall of Famers. He could deal with owner Al Davis every day and coach a veteran locker room full of hard-nosed players.
The squeeze from both sides, however, would eventually catch up with Madden, as seen in a painful scene from the documentary when Madden announced he would retire at age 42. He got the Raiders over the hump in 1976, finally winning a Super Bowl after falling short for years.
But players were constantly worried about him as the seasons went on, with his big frame ballooning every November and December from the pressure of Just Win, Baby.
“He’d be up at 350 pounds sometimes by the end of the year, just pounding down Maalox for his stomach,” said Villapiano. “We loved him but we worried about him—a lot.”
Madden was burning out by 1979. But he became the youngest coach to win the Super Bowl at that time (40) and had a 103-32-7 record, still the best winning percentage (75.9%) of any coach who won 100 games.
“He might have been more proud of that statistic than anything else he did in life,” said Stenner. “People forget that John was one of the brightest, most successful coaches in NFL history and he got out at the absolute perfect time.”
At the news conference when Madden announced his retirement, his wife, Virginia, pulled his sons out of school to come and watch. The whole family, including Madden, cried twice, before and after he told the football world that he would never coach again.
“I gave it everything I had,” said Madden. “I don’t have any more. It’s very difficult after 10 years to stand up and say that you’re retiring. I’m not resigning. I’m not quitting. I’m retiring from football coaching, and I’m never going to coach again.”
And he never did.
However, a few years after his retirement, when he got his chance to broadcast football games, he immediately fell in love with it.
He had a natural gift at teaching and explaining football to a wide audience, and a large part of it was his mastery of timing: He had the innate ability to navigate the time between plays, without stepping on his play-by-play partner, in a way that confuses even the smartest, most charismatic ex-players and coaches.
“New broadcasters usually try to say too much,” said Stenner. “Then you work with them and they swing the other way and become too abrupt and choppy. From the very beginning, John had an uncanny way to say just the right things, in just the right amount of time, and that’s way harder than people realize.”
He ended up with Summerall, where they would call games together for 22 years. At the end of a play, Summerall’s calm, concise voice would ask Madden something like, “What do you know about pulling guards, John?” and then it was all Madden.
Madden became so popular in the mid-1980s that he would become the king of the commercial, promoting everything, from Ace Hardware to Outback Steakhouse to Miller Lite. And he still said no to a lot more ads than he said yes to.
“It probably doesn’t seem like it, but John was careful about his endorsements,” said longtime friend and TV producer Richie Zyontz. “He did a lot of ads, but if you watch, you’ll notice they were all good ads. He wouldn’t just put his name on anything.”
And that is one big reason the first Madden game was produced in 1988 and not 1984.
The aforementioned Trip Hawkins, EA Sports founder, had the idea to make a video game with Madden as its front man in 1984, and met with Madden back when he was traveling across the country on a train—the Madden Cruiser wasn’t born until later in the 80s. Madden loved the idea and agreed with Hawkins that football could, would, and should be taught through a video game.
But when they were going towards a deal, Hawkins let Madden know he wasn’t sure on if the technology could fit a full 11-on-11 game. He suggested dropping some linemen to get a 7-on-7 game.
Madden didn’t like the idea. Hawkins said that it would take years to get 22 guys on a screen.
It did take years—four, to be exact—for the first Madden game to come out. The release of the first Madden Football game was in June 1988, and it became the most important sports game ever produced. The franchise sold north of 130 million copies, with more than $4 billion in sales since its debut.
“I’d say he was the right guy, in the right place, at the right time with Madden Football, don’t you think?” said Zyontz.
As the game spread in popularity, Madden solidified his spot as perhaps the NFL’s most prized personality—even bigger than players and teams themselves. He left CBS for Fox in 1994 and helped the network get recognition, negotiating directly with Rupert Murdoch to pull a shocking new home for him and NFC football.
He would announce his retirement from broadcasting right after the 2009 season, at age 72 and being the best in his business. The Steelers and Cardinals put up a memorable Super Bowl XLIII in his final game that he called.
“Couldn’t have written that any better,” said Stenner.
Madden got a lot of requests to come back. The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch, who was then at Sports Illustrated, reported that in 2014, Al Michael, Cris Collinsworth, and Sunday Night Football producer Fred Gaudelli took Madden to dinner at San Francisco.
They had an idea: What if Madden came out of retirement and did one final game? They offered to make sure it was a game near Madden’s home in California.
But Madden said no to the offer.
“He’d done everything you could ever do in broadcasting,” said Zyontz. “He didn’t need money or fame or anything like that, and he didn’t have a big enough ego to need one more game. John had made his mark, and he was content with that.”
Madden was a very unique NFL announcer where he took football seriously, but never himself. He always seemed to have fun, and he wanted to make sure he did.
In remembrance of him, here are some of his most memorable quotes:
Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble.
Don’t worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagon.
If you can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.
I always used to tell my players that we are here to win! And you know what, Al? When you don’t win, you lose.
If a guy doesn’t work hard and doesn’t play well, he can’t lead anything. All he is, is a talker.
The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer.
The fewer rules a coach has, the fewer rules there are for players to break.
Winning is a great deodorant.
The only yardstick for success our society has is being a champion. No one remembers anything else.
I never professed to be perfect. I do something wrong or something stupid, I laugh at myself.
If you see a defense team with dirt and mud on their backs they’ve had a bad day.
Coaches have to watch for what they don’t want to see and listen to what they don’t want to hear.
You know, there’s a rule in sports: “Don’t do anything great if you can’t handle the congratulations.”
In Oakland, Al Davis was a genius. We had Ron Wolff there, too, and he was a genius. There was no room for me to be a genius.
I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I never really had a job. I was a football player, then a football coach, then a football broadcaster. It’s been my life. Pro football has been my life since 1967. I’ve enjoyed every part of it. Never once did it ever feel like work.
Today feels like the second time in my life that I’m being carried off the shoulders of others. Yet instead of off the field, it’s into the Hall of Fame. Instead of five or six guys today, I ride on the shoulders of hundreds of friends, coaches, players, colleagues, family. I just say this, I thank you all very much. This has been the sweetest ride of ‘em all.
As I look back now on my coaching career, I think of my family, I think of the days that we spent together. I say this to coaches everywhere: If you ever have a chance to take your kids with you, take them. Don’t miss that opportunity. Because when it’s all over and done with, when you look back, those are going to be your fondest memories.
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