John Madden, a former American football coach and TV commentator who made the history of the National Football League, is dead. He was 85 years old. Famous for leading the Oakland Raiders to Super Bowl victory in 1976, he owes tremendous popularity to his career as a TV analyst. His is the name of the “official” NFL video game series on football: Madden Fnl.
His exuberant personality has made him an icon of US sport. With his distinctive voice and notoriety, Madden became a staple of American football broadcasts throughout his 30-year career as a commentator. It started in 1979 and ended with Super Bowl 43 in February 2009. Madden’s success as a much-loved presenter and, later, involvement as the voice of the hit video game series ‘Madden Nfl’, has put him in second place. plan the remarkable results as a coach.
“Nobody loved football more than Coach – said the NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell – he was football”. News of the death was spread by the NFL league itself, adding that Madden died “unexpectedly” on Tuesday morning. Nothing else was added on the cause of death. “There will never be another John Madden, and we will forever be indebted to him for everything he did to make football and the NFL what it is today,” Goodell added.
Born on April 10, 1936, Madden grew up in California and looked destined for a career in football after starting with his high school team. But his hopes of a professional career ended without him playing a single game, when he suffered a serious knee injury during his first professional training camp. It was following the injury that he embarked on a career as a coach. While in rehab, he spent hours watching games in the company of Eagles quarterback Norm Van Brocklin. “That’s where I learned professional football,” Madden would say years later.
After several years of coaching in college football, he was hired by Oakland owner Al Davis in 1967. Two years later, he would become the youngest head coach in NFL history at the time, aged 32 years and 10 months. When, after leaving the role of coach, he was hired by CBS as a commentator to make the ‘color’, he proved to be a phenomenon in the TV booth. Eventually he would work for all four major networks – CBS, Fox, ABC and NBC – earning more than any NFL player. He was also famous for a fear of flying, which led him to travel on a custom bus nicknamed “Madden Cruiser”.
Madden’s signature style made him the logical choice as a key figure in the only officially licensed Nfl video game, “John Madden Football”, launched in 1988. The game, which would later be known simply as “Madden Nfl” and updated every year, it would become one of the best-selling video games of all time – generating billions of dollars in sales – and hugely popular with fans and gamers alike.