85 years old. Lived one hell of a life.
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A life will lived. Never heard a bad word about him.
He was a legend as a coach. He was a legend as a broadcaster. And he changed the video game world forever. Hard pressed to find someone more influential to their sport than John Madden. RIP
Sad news. Rest In Peace coach Madden.
Very good coach, great commentator, and a secret Soviet Spy!
5 Times John Madden Filled The Silence During An On-Field Injury By Bragging About Being A Soviet Spy https://t.co/VQHNDOenvS
— ClickHole (@ClickHole) December 29, 2021
RIP to a legend!
I believe he was the TV analyst for Packers over Patriots Super Bowl XXXI. Summerall and Madden, those guys were fantastic for a long time.
I loved his books. Loved his Miller Beer commercials. He was still coaching when I began watching the NFL in the late '70s. He probably could have won even more Super Bowls if he had stuck around, but he became more legendary for what he did after his coaching career was over.
Frank caliendo does it best - brings me back to all the weekend games they called - good times the guy did love Brett rip
what the hell is a turducken lol
Very intelligent man, who truly loved and appreciated football.
Also, very much his own man, which is why he was so effective coaching the truly wild Raiders teams from the 70s.
RIP.
@fightphoe93 posted:Loved his Miller Beer commercials.
Boom!
@pkr_north posted:Frank caliendo does it best - brings me back to all the weekend games they called - good times the guy did love Brett rip
what the hell is a turducken lol
Brett Favre. Brett Favre can do anything. I mean, I mean one time I saw Brett Favre throw a pass and run down the field, save a choking baby in the stands and still catch his own pass for touchdown. That's what Brett Favre can do.
This one hurts. He brought an energy to the game that has been hard to duplicate. May he rest in peace.
Let us not forget the fabled Madden Cruiser, a converted Greyhound bus, no flying for him!
FYI his bus is now in The Pro football Hall of Fame in Canton Ohio.
RIP John
RIP, John!
John's view of heaven..."It doesn't get any better than this..."
Met him once at a Basque restaurant called Wool Growers (many Basque are sheep herders). He was quietly eating with one of his sons. When he finished, I approached him and said "Coach Madden, just wanted to say I'm neighbors with Daryle LaMonica, and it's a real honor to meet you." He let out a huge chortle, said "call me John!" and extended his massive paw, shook my hand and began to ask me a million questions...how I knew Daryle, if I was a Raiders fan, etc. Circa 1997, told him I was a Packers fan, of course he says "that Brett FAVRE is a special one!" To this day the kindest celebrity I've ever met.
After about 15 minutes I told him I'd let him get back to his meal.
When I went to pay my bill the waitress said "oh, it's been taken care of. I asked by who and she said "it's been taken care of." My assumption was, it was John Madden's treat.
RIP Coach...
NFL needs to step up and rename the MVP Trophy to the John Madden Trophy
I wouldn't have a problem with that, but wouldn't it be more appropriate for the Coach of the Year award?
And how the hell did Summerall keep from cracking up over Madden's spy stories?
"All Madden Team" has become synonymous with the best players in the game...8 year olds don't run around the playground pretending to be Matt LaFleur and Bill Belichick.
Well, maybe Fedya's kids would...
@Chongo posted:Met him once at a Basque restaurant called Wool Growers (many Basque are sheep herders). He was quietly eating with one of his sons. When he finished, I approached him and said "Coach Madden, just wanted to say I'm neighbors with Daryle LaMonica, and it's a real honor to meet you." He let out a huge chortle, said "call me John!" and extended his massive paw, shook my hand and began to ask me a million questions...how I knew Daryle, if I was a Raiders fan, etc. Circa 1997, told him I was a Packers fan, of course he says "that Brett FAVRE is a special one!" To this day the kindest celebrity I've ever met.
After about 15 minutes I told him I'd let him get back to his meal.
When I went to pay my bill the waitress said "oh, it's been taken care of. I asked by who and she said "it's been taken care of." My assumption was, it was John Madden's treat.
RIP Coach...
That is an awesome story Chongo! I had heard over the years that Madden was a little bit prickly to persons like yourself that approached him. Good to hear that in your case, he included you in “his circle”. That had to be so cool to have Madden open up to you as it sounds like that wasn’t something he did for everyone if he wasn’t in the mood for it.
John Madden, who died on Tuesday at the age of 85, was known to yell at players and officials during his days as the Oakland Raiders’ head coach. But he also showed, in quiet moments away from the TV cameras, a decency for the players who sacrificed their bodies for the sport Madden loved so much.
George Blanda, the Hall of Famer who played 26 seasons, longer than anyone else in NFL history, said of Madden in 1979, “Of all the coaches I ever slaved for, John Madden was the kindest and the most thoughtful.”
But it was one act of kindness in particular that many recalled about Madden after his death: The care he showed for Darryl Stingley, a New England Patriots player who suffered a life-changing spinal cord injury in a preseason game against Madden’s Raiders in 1978.
When Madden learned of the severity of Stingley’s injury after the game, he went straight to the Oakland-area hospital where Stingley had been taken. When Madden arrived he was angered to learn that Patriots head coach Chuck Fairbanks was flying home with the rest of the team, as Madden felt that Fairbanks should have stayed with Stingley until Stingley’s family could arrive. A 1979 New York Times article reported that Madden got someone at the airport on the phone and barked, “You get Chuck Fairbanks off that plane.”
A Sports Illustrated profile of Madden in 1983 reported that when Stingley’s family did arrive, Madden and his wife offered to let the family stay in their home and use their car as long as Stingley was in the hospital. Madden also took time away from the Raiders’ training camp to make regular visits to Stingley. After the Raiders played the Broncos in the regular-season opener that year, they flew home from Denver and Madden went straight from the airport to the hospital to see Stingley.
Madden retired from coaching at the end of that season, and although Madden never said so, some who knew him felt the distress he felt about Stingley’s injury contributed to his decision to step away.
Stingley would never walk again, and he died in 2007 at the age of 55. In his autobiography, Stingley wrote of Madden, “I love that man.” Stingley could have been speaking for the whole football world.
BTW, during AR's long 17 year career, he has never been on the cover of Madden. Which is rather mind blowing but at the same time I know fans get paranoid when a player or their team goes on it...AKA the "curse".
Still, it's amazing with 3 MVPs etc Rodgers never went on the cover.
Favorite Madden story was the one he himself told about Lombardi. Said he was a Junior College coach and went to coaching clinic that featured Lombardi. Said he sat in the back row because he was sure that he knew everything there was to know about football....after listening to Lombardi talk for 7 hours on one play (Packer sweep) he said he walked out of there convinced he didn't know anything about football!!
@fightphoe93 posted:That is an awesome story Chongo! I had heard over the years that Madden was a little bit prickly to persons like yourself that approached him. Good to hear that in your case, he included you in “his circle”. That had to be so cool to have Madden open up to you as it sounds like that wasn’t something he did for everyone if he wasn’t in the mood for it.
Well, to be fair, I lead with "Daryle LaMonica is my neighbor," so that probably greased the wheel to the pleasant side. I also waited until he was done with his meal. Most people I'm sure just ran up to him and got in his face. Also, there wasn't a crowd around him...there were 5 people in the whole place, a quiet, hole in the wall joint frequented by locals in Los Banos, CA (very small town) on a Sunday afternoon in April.
My favorite football announcer of all time. I was shocked to hear this news, as well as saddened. I missed him after he left the booth, and I'll miss him forever. He was such a large part of my football experience, so many great memories, and he taught me (and a lot of us) a lot about football along the way. Add to that the stories of him being such a great person - he will be missed by many. I recorded that special on him from last weekend, it will have that much more meaning now when I finally get to watch it. RIP Coach.
@pkr_north posted:Frank caliendo does it best - brings me back to all the weekend games they called - good times the guy did love Brett rip
what the hell is a turducken lol
It's funny, most people (myself included) assumed this was a Madden creation.
It was supposedly a Paul Prudhomme creation that he didn't trademark until the mid 80's. Cool story from 2017 on how much impact Madden had on the Turducken.
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But there’s also a story that in 1985, a farmer came to Hebert’s Specialty Meats and asked for the shop to combine all three fowls.
And that’s where Glenn Mistich comes in. Mistich’s wife Leah is from the family that owned Hebert’s, and he opened his Gourmet Butcher Block in 1994, where he used some savvy knifework to debone the trio of birds, line them up with various types of stuffing in between and sew them together.
He told For The Win that before Madden popularized the turducken, he sold 250 of them a year.
Then, in 1997, he heard longtime radio personality Bob Delgiorno talking on-air about getting Madden to try the dish before the Hall of Famer was set to broadcast a Rams-Saints game from the Superdome. Delgiorno told For The Win that he had interviewed Madden a few times on his show and that Mistich used to advertise the turducken on the station.
“Bob got in touch and we went to Superdome,” Mistich recalled. “Madden grabbed a piece of it with his hands and fell in love with it.”
Madden — who declined an interview request from For The Win — confirmed that was true to the New York Times in 2002.
“‘The P.R. guy for the Saints brought me one. And he brought it to the booth. It smelled and looked so good. I didn’t have any plates or silverware or anything, and I just started eating it with my hands.”
(AP Photo/Intelligencer Journal, Suzette Wenger)
There’s also this anecdote to add to that moment via NOLA.com:
“I’m there eating this turducken with my fingers,” Madden recalled. “(Saints owner) Tom Benson comes in and I have all this stuff on my fingers and I’m doing that thing in my head where I’m wondering, ‘Do I shake his hand?’ ”
(For the record: Madden did shake Benson’s hand, sticky fingers and all, and he said the two haven’t spoken since.)
The next day, Mistich got a phone call he thought was a prank.
“I really loved it,” he remembered Madden saying. “Can you send one to me in California?”
Two weeks later, there was a FOX camera crew in his shop because Madden chose turducken to be the official “All-Madden Team” food. This year, he estimates he’ll sell between five and six thousand turduckens, two of which are shipped to Madden himself.
“Every year, he gets one for Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Mistich said.
“I’m very grateful,” Mistich added. “I can’t say enough about what he’s done for our business. He’s definitely put it on a national level. Turducken is even in the dictionary now.”
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Is turducken the turkey with 6 legs (if I recall correctly) I saw on the thanksgiving day games Madden announced?
Something like chicken in a duck in a turkey.
Turducken and the 6 legged turkey were two different things.
the 6 legged turkey is what happens when you mess with cloning.
@Ghost of Lambeau posted:Is turducken the turkey with 6 legs (if I recall correctly) I saw on the thanksgiving day games Madden announced?
No, that was the frankenturkey they used to allow enough legs in case the player of the game was the entire offensive line or something like that.
@PackerHawk posted:No, that was the frankenturkey they used to allow enough legs in case the player of the game was the entire offensive line or something like that.
Or Nate Newton won it.
One of my most prized possessions I have is my “All-Madden” trophy. Not bc of what I did to earn it but that John Madden thought that much of me to want me on HIS “team”. Its the “honor” of that, that I will always cherish and an honor to work with him over the years. RIP💚💛 pic.twitter.com/JuVkS3FDht
— Don Majkowski (@Dmajik7) December 29, 2021