Madden’s way one of a kind
Somehow, he made every game feel fresh.
So it barely mattered whether you first ran across John Madden as the growling, grizzly bear-sized coach of the Raiders, the big, booming soundtrack of the NFL, or the guy with the “what-me-worry?” smile peeking out from the slot on a video-game console. All three generations of football fans faithfully followed in his wake because every run-in with Madden after was bound to yield something new.
Madden riffed about dogs, turkey legs and once he got his hands on a telestrator, did animated bits about Gatorade buckets being part of a family and Troy Aikman’s inability to grow a beard. Madden never lost his delight in illuminating the little dramas that took place at the edges of the TV camera’s eye.
He even waited some 30 years to reveal what surprised him most about the crowning achievement of his time on the sidelines — the Raiders’ 1976 Super Bowl championship.
“I was told it took five or six guys to lift me up,” Madden began the tale, “then they dropped me. ... But it was the happiest moment of my life.”
Madden laid down the template for what would become one of the most influential careers the game has ever seen early in his tenure as a coach. Owner Al Davis had just handed over the reins of one of NFL’s surliest franchises to the then-32year-old assistant in 1969, and there were a halfdozen or more successful role models from which to choose — among them, Vince Lombardi, Tom Landry, Don Shula and George Allen, all of them with hard-earned reputations as disciplinarians.
Even then, Madden decided to go his own way.
“The fewer rules a coach has,” he announced with flawless logic, “the fewer rules there are to break.”
The tributes pouring in since Madden’s death Tuesday at age 85 focused on the “everyman” facet of his personality. Of course, not every man spends most of his adult life working within earshot of a microphone. And what came out of Madden’s mouth at big moments in the biggest games sounded at times like spontaneous combustion — Boom! Whap! Boink! Oof! Bam!
But Madden made it a point to resonate with fans beyond the emotional level. He was a teacher, trying to make an often overly complicated game understandable.
Ultimately, what most folks will remember about Madden largely reflects where in their own lives they first found him. Patriots coach Bill Belichick was asked what he would recall. “John is just a tremendous person to be around,” Belichick said. “I think we all, probably, try to have a good professional career. John had about five.”
Belichick went on to laud him as a coach, a champion for scouting and supporting minority players, an advocate for player safety, a broadcaster and icon whose video game his own players still relished.
“Whatever was called for, he always seemed to have the right words.”