John Madden

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I was an out of market kid for difficult reasons and before DirectTV's "The Ticket" and some internet piracy, I got to see the New Orleans Saints on television when they happened to be the NFC game that week. If they were the NFC game then it meant that Pat Summerall and John Madden were announcing.

My dad, a car guy, gave up trying to teach me how to drive after almost a year. He sent me to a driver's education class. The instructional video I remember seeing was by Pat Summerall, who calmly stated in his "bring it down" manner that before he drives anywhere he asks if he is calm and in a good place to start the car. I told my wife that for the first time a few days ago, as I was worked up about something and about to drive us somewhere. Calm. Callllllllllm. I've been driving for 30 years and that simple instruction from Pat Summerall probably stopped me from getting in a crash at one point. Thanks, Pat, you secret alcoholic.

John Madden, however, was not calm.

He was the crazy guy who could not be contained or controlled for a football broadcast, football, our little gift to the world that the rest of the world gave right back. I have no memories of John Madden as a football coach. He has (or had?) the greatest winning percentage of any coach ever, he won a Super Bowl with the icon OAKLAND RAIDERS (there are Raiders fans in every single city in America from Seattle, Washington to Bangor Maine and I doubt that happens without Madden making them cool in the 1970s). For me, John Madden was first an announcer.

The team I picked, the New Orleans Saints, were bad for a long time. I doubt any other team except for maybe the Atlanta Falcons had as little success for like the first 25 years of their existence. They started to get a little better when I started making sure I watched them when they were on TV and the thing I credit John Madden for the most is that he treated each NFC team he called with respect. This is a very stupid culture we're in right now where everyone thinks they are hot shit by insulting teams and players and everyone has stupid, infantile "hot takes." John Madden never had to think twice about the Saints (although looking it up, he faced the Saints twice - the first time a tie(!!!) and the second a 48-10 ass-whipping) but it was crazy to be able to listen to someone talk about the Saints on TV in the mid to late 1980s with respect. It was simply unheard of. The guy was a gentleman. He picked all four Saints linebackers for his All-Madden team one year when the Saints had the 4 best linebackers in the NFL. He knew his stuff. Think of how awful football announcing is in this day and age -- all we wanted was a normal guy giving us the facts and an excited guy giving his opinion and we knew that's what we wanted thanks to John Madden.

Word has it that when Trip Hawkins was trying to sign him for the football game he was in charge of for Electronic Arts that John Madden insisted that 11 players on each side be depicted. That is amazing! Football for the Atari 2600 is a grotesque abomination. Touchdown Football! for the PCjr was playable but had, I think... 6 guys on a side? Madden didn't want to be associated with goofy computer football and advanced the state of sports video games by a decade. Suddenly your game looked like shit if the correct number of players weren't on the screen. Suddenly your game was a joke if you didn't have all the little dudes running around. My brother and I got Madden football for our Sega Genesis and played many seasons of it. We played many seasons of other football games. He's still in multiple online Madden leagues and while the game itself has issues and the garbage commissioner destroyed competition by allowing the official rights to be sold to a single company, the reason those rights matter at all is because John Madden elevated the sports game.

He seemed like a good guy. He was the best at what he did for three different things and that's more than most of us can say. A legend.