RIP John Madden

Ah, damn. Loved the guy. A legend indeed.

For those that might not know, he never flew on a plane. Trains all the time. He loved meeting average people and talking to them. Nice guy.

If this team doesn’t put points on the board, I don’t see how they can win.

Usually the team that scores the most points wins the game.

Self praise is for losers.

RIP, sir.

There are entire generations who never knew him as a coach, or even as an announcer. They just know him from the video game.

Say hi to Pat for us, John. The best broadcasting duo is reunited.

John Madden could diagram anything:

https://youtu.be/RsAuIsn3Kw4?t=60

Great coach and a great announcer. He truly was one of a kind.

His greatest gift is that I listened to him talk about an ice bucket for 4 minutes and I enjoyed it.

So glad that he got to get all the personal notes and interviews and was able to watch the special on his life that aired on FOX on Christmas Day.

If you missed that, it’ll hit streaming services next week.

That had to be hard getting to games. I rather like riding a train too - no security line etc (travel time can vary from route to route depending how many regular problems Amtrak is having on a certain line).

I always enjoyed listening to him.

I think he had a custom bus that he rode in a lot, too.

He also used the “Madden Cruiser”, a custom bus he drove from place to place.

I thought he had died 10 years ago. Wow.

RIP , I listened to him so much as a kid, I can still hear his voice.

In college after leaving the library late at night I used to go sit with certain friends of mine who watched sports on TV all day, every day. There was a spot for some TV documentary about John Madden’s days as a coach. “Oh,” says I, “John Madden was a coach?” And all my friends laughed at me in uproarious scorn.

I said “Fuck you all. To me, John Madden is the fat guy who says ‘Ace is the place for me’ on those commercials. I don’t watch boring-ass sports except when I’m sitting with you, I don’t give a shit about them, and I don’t give a shit about John Madden being a coach, so fuck you.”

They went quiet, and then one of them said, “Seriously…if you didn’t watch sports, WHAT DID YOU DO?” He really was serious. He’d known me for three years, and he literally could not imagine what I could have done during my childhood if I didn’t watch sports on TV. I told him I spent it fucking his mother.

Anyway, John Madden was fat and I don’t think he really shopped at Ace Hardware.

I’m impressed at the speed you guys found the Madden diagramming videos on Youtube.

Along with Vin Sculley, and the Laker’s Chick Hern my favorite announcer. He could make anything interesting. Madden was one of the few sports games I bought, sadly I never got good at it.

Man, I grew up in the LA area when football was essentially a non-entity, but putting Madden with Vin and Chick speaks volumes.

Also, the Chick Hearn “Wrap Around” rap is still great if you were a fan of the showtime Lakers.

RIP Mr. Madden. I knew you mainly from ads, video games, and weird turducken videos, but clearly you touched greatness.

I remember the Raiders teams he coached, before he became a broadcaster. Loved him then, like I loved the Raiders in all of their miscreant misguided wonderfulness. But I fell away from sports a long time ago, and so I look back on that era with a sort of nostalgic vision that I’m sure obscures a lot of the bad stuff.

Maybe the best color announcer of all time. He made games I didn’t care about fun to watch.