Remembering John Earl Madden…The Man…The Myth…THE LEGEND!!!
Rest In Peace John Earl Madden
Many young adults (including myself) mainly remember you from the video games, but we also must remember that you were an outstanding commentator, coach, a great father, and a great man.
For many generations, you made an impact on many people watching you team up with Pat Summerall on CBS (1981-93) and FOX (1994-2001), thanks to your exemplary knowledge of the sport of football, breaking down matchups, and making fair and honest calls without showing bias towards any team. You also made a great job having enthusiastic commentary, where you would use your telestrator and call the game as if you were telling the story. With these qualities, you and Pat Summerall are considered the greatest announcing team ever by any sport, especially when it comes to football. Regardless of how well or horrible a team was doing, when you and Pat were announcing it, people were going to be tuned in!
As Michael Strahan, former Defensive End of the New York Giants from 1993-2007 stated, “When you played and Madden was on the call…It was time to shine!” This definitely held true when CBS aired an NCAA Division III College Football game on Sunday, October 3, 1982, when rivals Wittenberg University (Springfield, Ohio) welcomed Baldwin-Wallace (Berea, Ohio) during a game when the NFL was going through a strike. It may have had only 7,000 people, but that didn’t stop John Madden from performing well, where CBS gained four million viewers over NBC’s coverage of the Canadian Football League.
Both teams had to practice hard because they knew you were going to call the game! Thanks to your enthusiasm for the sport and your flamboyant delivery in every game you called, you won over a dozen Emmy Awards as the Outstanding Sports Event Analyst. You were also such a creative announcer, that you would award a turkey to the winning team, whenever you called a Thanksgiving Day game for CBS or FOX.
Many fans had the privilege of seeing you call games when Joe Montana and Steve Young made long bombs to Jerry Rice, the outstanding Chicago Bears defense in the 80s led by “Iron” Mike Singletary, the Dallas Cowboys of the 90s led by the “Triplets” of Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin, “The Hogs” – the outstanding offensive line of the Washington Redskins, Barry Sanders carrying the Detroit Lions with his spectacular runs and many other legends that made the NFL fun to watch.
Not only you were a great announcer, but you were also a great head coach, where you never had a losing season with the mighty Oakland Raiders, as you became the youngest head coach (at the time) in professional football, at age 32 in 1969. Your 103-72-7 win/loss/tie record, with a 56.3% winning record is second in league history. Because of this, your teams played hard, appeared in six AFC Championship Games, winning a Super Bowl over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl XI (11) in January 1977, for the 1976 season. Your care of your players, instructing them to be punctual, and pushing them to perform well every Sunday, are the reasons why your teams succeeded in playing as hard as they could on game days. Because of these, it contributed to the Raiders being one of the most successful teams in the NFL during the 1970s.
Your love for the game, as well as your contributions to football, led you to be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006. Not only did you do well commentating and coaching the sport of football, you were also a great pitchman for Miller Lite, ACE Hardware, and TinActin.
Let’s get to the Madden games. Thanks to your input of wanting an 11-on-11 football game, to replicate what fans were used to seeing on Sundays, led to a series that has been in existence since 1988 by the folks of Electronic Arts. You have made many children and adult’s Christmases, Birthdays, Paydays and more, by your annual releases ranging from systems such as the Sega Genesis to the Super Nintendo to the PlayStation 2, Original XBOX, XBOX 360 to newer systems such as the PlayStation 5 and the XBOX Series X. Thanks to your creative inputs, the series has sold millions of copies and is a very popular long-running series. It has also helped the sports game genre become what it is today.
Aside from these accomplishments, you still had time to be an outstanding husband to your wife, Virginia for over 60 years, a father to Joseph and Michael, and a great grandfather to many others.
While you are no longer with us, many fans still have the memories of sharing your love of football – whether through coaching, announcing, or video games, your legacy will live on. The lucky fans who still have their VHS tapes recorded would love to go back in time and re-watch many games that you and Pat Summerall announced to bring back fond memories of the gridiron should be played. Some gamers with their classic systems will pull out their Sega Genesis’, Super Nintendos, PlayStation 2’s, etc. to go back in time to hear your wonderful voice again. The sport of football will never be the same without you.
Rest In Peace John Earl Madden. A legend has gone too soon.