John Madden: A Name Synonymous with Football | A Football Life

[Music] okay so there's this guy and he's a big guy he was an ex-offensive lineman then he became a head coach in the nfl for the oakland raiders he wore a lot of bad 70s clothes and he was the head coach of this team it was just a hitch in the mouth crazy football team and then he gets out and then the next thing you know he's in these beer commercials and he's he's busting through walls and and he becomes a broadcaster and he he says boom and whap and he's drawn on a telestrator and he gets really loud he gets really fast that's the old body slam you know like they do in wrestling he rides around in a bus he doesn't like being in a plane across the country going from town to town game to game city to city people can't get close enough to him but he's kind of a loner he's a guy that likes his privacy but on sunday he will light up your television screen with words that aren't even words boom right there that's a wham block that's john madden and he's dearly missed in the game today you're going to be a football player when you grow up today is the best day of your life believe me give me eight days of daylight greatest leader i've ever known what a ride i'm the luckiest guy in the world i've been in football all my life behind john madden's office in pleasanton california is an old raider blocking sled the core of it was was football to me this is where it all starts you see the you know seven-man sled it's the greatest game in the world hitting a seven-minute sled that's the first thing they do so that would get rid of all hangovers football has been my life and it's given me so much when you call that snap count you should hear one boom now playing is the best thing coaching is the next best thing when you're a coach and you're just standing out here you can ride this thing all day but when you can play it for a while and then go on with your life's work and it's still football you're the luckiest guy in the world 30 100 200. [Music] john madden hasn't had one football life he's led several of them for a decade he held the whistle in oakland and coached the raiders to their first super bowl win he held a mic for 30 years and won 16 emmy awards as a broadcaster and of course he often held a cold beer as a tv commercial star he held a joystick as a video game pioneer held a pen as a best-selling author and he even held his own on saturday night [Applause] been practicing live all week they're terrific for over 50 years the name madden and football have been synonymous his first field was madden's lot behind his daly city california house and his best friend was future usc and ram head coach john robinson [Music] since the age of 10 the two johns competed for everything you'd get the ice cream cone and you would say no bites and that means that he couldn't ask for a bite but if you set bites first then you got a bite so if he says bites before you say no bites you have to give them bites well john being the kind of bad human being that he was at the time would spit on ice cream cones that means that he got bites now he's not getting it well i put up with that for a while but then i said to hell with this i need to compete here so i would bite on i'd take a bite anyway john robinson was the only guy that would still eat the ice cream after he spit on it when he got bites and he always thought that was unbelievable that i would do that but i wouldn't i didn't care some as much about the food as i i didn't want to lose to him you know john robinson close friends of yours and what a nice man well forever you know john robinson and i grew up together we were in grammar school and all that we were going to be the two greatest players that ever lived we were going to play for the yankees in the fall in the summer and the 49ers in the winter we watched the 49ers and hugh mcelini made a great run we would always say i'm you michellini you know and then you'd make a run john's favorite player was bob tonight i'm bob tarnoff and you'd get off right there we would stand in front of mirrors and practice our batting stances i'm ted williams you know bat straight [Music] we began to realize that maybe this fabulous career wasn't going to happen the daily city duo went to the university of oregon robinson played for four years madden lasted only one it wasn't a good fit i didn't have a car and it rained every day and you had to walk and i just so anyway i went to cal poly and and that that was everything that i needed and i was able to go there graduate get my teaching credential get my master's degree in 1958 madden was drafted by philadelphia in the 21st round but in training camp he shredded his knee and his career was over [Music] he wanted to coach so he spent the 59 season watching film with future hall of fame quarterback norm van broglin he called me red he said hey rhett come on up here with me and i sat up there with dutch i'm the only one there and so he was talking out loud and then he started talking to me more i never had i'm not saying i said yeah dutch why do you have tommy mcdonald do a post and then hook up and see if he had something and i never did anything like that i just listened but it was the greatest education i ever had normal broccoli madden also attended a coaching seminar given by his idol vince lombardi it's the power sweep it's the lead play in our in our offense and vince lombardi spoke on one play for eight hours this is the play we feel that every defense that we face must stop one play eight hours this is what we call running to daylight i could have spoken on any subject for like two minutes inside the defensive tackle inside the defensive end and i realized at that point i don't know a damn thing i'm a bluff my knowledge was just surface madden was a newlywed and soon to be father of two he needed some paychecks so he quickly worked his way up the coaching ranks [Music] john madden's coaching career began in 1960 at hancock junior college [Music] four years later he went to san diego state where he learned a new pass offense from future nfl head coach don coryell raiders boss al davis was impressed by madden's rise in 1967 davis hired him as linebacker's coach we can also sometimes run a in madden's first season he matched wits with his idol vince lombardi in super bowl two oakland lost two years later the raiders lost head coach john rauch who abruptly left for buffalo [Music] al came in and talked to everyone and said look i'll talk to any one of you after the draft is over about being the head coach davis had his eye on baltimore colts defensive coach chuck noll so chuck got the job with the pittsburgh steelers so now i'm thinking al had a guy i think was chuck and now he doesn't have a guy so if he doesn't have a guy and why not me davis agreed and at age 32 madden became the youngest head coach in the nfl it was just good for me he was just great he was great coach a great teacher he was great with players he wanted to win and he believed in the raiders he believed in silver and black we have a fine veteran football club but our job is going to be to take the people that we've drafted to develop them and someday they're ready to play and be a very good open raider all right way to go herpes lombardi kind of liked patton and i could see john madden looking at lombardi and looking at patton and saying hope i'll take the best out of him and the best out of him and then i'll leave a whole bunch behind so he left the lombardi behind and went into the madden which was perfect for his team i admired all those guys but if i would have tried to be like any of them i would have been a phony now there's nothing that is worse than a phony because players will see through a phony you don't have any longevity now if you're going to have longevity you better be yourself and you better be yourself every dog gone day let's start off and stay after the whole game madden let the raiders be the raiders gone was the dress code and the never sit on your helmet rule i'll be myself and you guys can be yourselves the last thing i'd say when i was coaching before we went out of the field is don't worry about the horse being blind just load the wagon don't worry about anything else you just go whip the other team you know i only had three rules and one was be on time don't be late for meetings pay attention he was a stickler on that play like hell when i tell you to you play hard when i tell you to you know you have to wear a necktie or something on the on the airplane you know that that's never won a game and he never had a superiority approach to us we're all kind of down in the dirt here and like in madden's backyard and and that's how we're gonna do it he knew that some guys needed a kick in the butt i don't you dumb could hold it madden learned that a pat on the back worked too i just coach you know when you yell at me that doesn't do any good and he looked at me and said all right don't be so sensitive out of nowhere don't be so sensitive but i was a sensitive person and you know what never yelled at me again nfl officials however were rarely spared what the hell are you trying to do you ever called one on them sometimes as the coach who just had to yell you jerk your picture it was easier to yell at officials than it was to players he was uh what you want in a football coach you want a guy who's gonna let his players play let his players be themselves and fight for him sometimes you gotta let the horses run wild and that's what jon would do let the horses run wild there wasn't a lot of late hits and stuff i mean i didn't i didn't teach that stuff i just taught him to play hard we always tried to play within the rules and you know maybe maybe stretch him a little madden's defense was all his design not so the offense he used the intermediate pass routes he learned from watching film with norm van brockman he dropped the bomb often using the launch codes he got from al davis and don coryell the heart of it all was lombardi's power sweep run to perfection behind one of the greatest offensive lines in nfl history it was all that bad and you know i know what he's going to do he's going to and we are but i had he runs to the left all the time well that jim auto is the center hall of fame [Music] jean upshaw as a left guard hall of fame art shell left tackle hall of fame why wouldn't i do that [Music] madden won six division titles in his first seven seasons but the best was yet to come i want to see this they know what they want so tight full right we want a lot of games and every game is a big game you know i mean people say you didn't win the big games well tell me when there's a little game john madden coached in more hair-raising games with names than anyone one of the greatest was the sea of hands playoff miracle in 1974 [Music] [Applause] you'll never see a better the ghost to the post from ken stabler to dave casper helped the raiders beat the colts in the 1977 playoffs a year later the holy roller stunned the charges [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] madden is on the field he wants to know if it's real they said yes get your big butt out of here he does in madden's most controversial game with the name he lost thanks to the immaculate reception [Music] he's looking he's in trouble [Music] frank went in no one called touchdown so my idea was you didn't know what happened it was just the manner in which it was done and then the finality about him and everyone runs off the field and you stand that's the only game i recall that i was worried for him you know because that was such a he never brought a game home but if there was one game where he just you looked at a man that lost he looked like a man that lost big time madden was an analyst for 11 super bowls and watched many coaches savor the victory ride that's the greatest feeling in the world that's what it's all about you are super bowl champions world champion but as a head coach madden hadn't taken that ride four times in six seasons great raider teams lost to the eventual super bowl winner you'd be disappointed but not gone you know we're close we're good we're good we're as good as they are in 1975 madden hired john robinson as running backs coach he hoped that robinson could help oakland finally make a super bowl instead the raiders lost their fifth championship game you just keep pounding on the door and the door will eventually collapse we're going to keep pounding on that door and that damn door is going to collapse some thought that madden couldn't win the big one and that al davis was the real coach of the team the last thing we want to do is make excuses more than anything else yeah my name's john [Laughter] hell of a time i know but anyway john thinks that just shows stupidity how made sure of the thing i was supposed to make sure of and john made sure of the things that he was supposed to take care which was the feel anything that i ever wanted that had to do with football you know he supported me it was a perfect situation it was a perfect thing for me after one season in oakland robinson left for usc as for the other john he was about to make history there gets to be a point in every game where you eliminate the outside when you get closer to the game the circle narrows and then it gets to a point where it's just us against them the toughest them was pittsburgh oakland lost to them three times in the playoffs 1976 would be different [Music] on opening day the raiders roared back from 14 down to beat the steelers in the final seconds [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oakland was near perfect losing just once in the regular season [Music] in the playoffs they trailed the patriots by four with 14 seconds left [Applause] [Music] [Applause] one team stood between them and the super bowl we're going to have to play our best next week because we've been here before and damn it this is a hurdle that we got to get over this is bill king at the oakland coliseum the home of the oakland raiders time and again they've arrived at this point the afc championship game only to be in one way or another bitterly disappointed the raiders dominated from start to finish [Applause] the super bowl really exists for the oakland raiders all along they've been thinking it was somebody's crazy illusion you're just so happy you know you finally get there and you probably do a lot of stupid things i mean i probably did i could have you know stuck my head in the toilet beautiful things he comes out of the shower looked like a dog with a hair on he just came around and shook everybody's head just like a wet dog going to the super bowl super bowl 11 was played in pasadena where a week earlier john robinson had led usc to a victory in the rose bowl madden hoped to make it a double dip for daly city [Music] first madden unleashed lombardi's power running game [Music] he followed it up with heir coryell passes to mvp fred belitnikov [Music] snake stabler pissed passes that would have made norm van brocklin proud the route was on [Music] [Applause] [Music] oakland hammered home the victory with madden's new 3-4 defense installed that year [Music] for the first time ever the raiders were super bowl champions [Music] [Applause] john madden's grin is he looks like a slick watermelon that was the the culmination of everything that he'd ever worked for god how does it feel okay that's great great it's waited a long time you know that was that was the day that was the biggest day of all of our lives john madden goes on the shoulders of his players robinson's rose bowl ride was so smooth he could have enjoyed an ice cream cone then they scooped up big john there was a cameraman on the ground and he was taking the shot up and he didn't move and my guys were carrying me off didn't see him and they tripped it was like the building that wasn't built correctly john started moving in one direction and you ain't stopping 300 and some pounds and it was like the london bridge is falling down you don't care i mean i don't care if i would have fell on my head you're so happy that that erases anything else i never thought like oh man that's terrible they're carrying me off the field we all fall down don't even think about it robinson was in the locker room when madden finally made it in and i remember seeing him after ending his statement since who would have thought two doofuses from daly city would have this happen to him that's about it you're a super bowl champion and they can never take it away from you maybe the fact that we'd chased it so long made it bigger to us it was the greatest feeling in the world there was nothing that can beat it we won every game that there is regular season game playoff game championship game super bowl game so all we could do is do it again and that didn't that didn't excite me i've been here for 12 years with the oakland raiders and 10 years as a head coach and those 10 years have been the happiest years of my life i gave it everything i had i don't have any more i'm not resigning i'm not quitting i'm not doing anything i'm retiring from football coaching and i'm never going to coach again i really didn't respect broadcasting then i mean i wasn't a big fan of broadcasting cbs offered me a job i don't know four or five games and i said no my agent at that time he said if you don't do it they may not want you i had to try it so i tried it and i really liked it i mean i really i really did like it but not at first being a giant on the sideline was great not so much in the booth i should have been sitting on his knee i should have been like a mannequin you know people people of a certain age will understand it should have been like charlie mccarthy and edgar bergen you know i was like he took up four-fifths of the shot it took a while for madden to learn how to fit in as an analyst good afternoon everyone dick stockton with john madden i'm gary bender along with john madden hi everybody i'm vince scully along with john madden frank labor along with ex oakland raiders coach john madden and looking ahead to the second half now what do you think well i really think what we thought before the game that it's still going to be secondary and coverage as stressful as those early broadcasts were flying to and from games was worse and i flew and i got this this terrible feeling and if you ever have claustrophobia or panic attack you kind of feel like you're dying you know and you know you start making promises and stuff and i said if i ever get off this if we land and i get off and i'm okay i'll never fly again what the heck's that i'm seeing there could we catch a little airplane fly yeah boy that's too low is that a real plane you think what do you think it is a toy i don't know never leave the ground madden took trains instead of planes to get around his phobia the thing that they have to do is the 49ers play on running downs a 3-4 defense in 1987 he hopped on the madden cruiser and traveled the back roads to the games eventually madden would become the game's top analyst he spent 22 years at cbs and fox working alongside pat sumrall he was john wayne and walter cronkite you know that's who he was and and he could keep everything on an even keel you know i'd be wandering off and then pat like could summarize it like in three words and i'd think that's what i was trying to say boom we cross him the left goes to the right the right goes to the left this guy crosses here he crosses here they have no idea where we are who we are where we're coming from or who we're throwing to very interesting there aren't many perfect marriages in the world that was a perfect marriage that one felt like i was sitting on my couch and john and pat were sitting over there in the two chairs next to me having a beer and we were watching the game joe montana looks more like barry manilow doesn't whatever he looks like he's a marvelous athlete it was a joy i mean i think everybody who was in the business wanted a show that looked and sounded like that madden summer all show he makes a little basketball twist there and pivot and boom the ball's there the booms and the whole thing and then the doinks when a uh a kick would hit the upright people love that listen to this one it was louder than a doink those booms and stuff have been with me all my life boom that is a great stiff arm he was so detailed and yet at the same time he could not hide his passion or most of all his sense of joy that he was at this game like this is a father bucket this is a mother bucket and since the last game they had a baby bucket so this is a baby bucket i guess that clears up the question as to whether they're married or not and he had guys he liked guys were a little different you know guys whose helmet was screwed on different you know i said john you need to make a team of those kind of guys you're all madden team that's how it started and he did he he started i told john i saw i i'm 50 of of um this franchise you know and you sent me an ice cream cone but the squiggly telestrator lines booms whaps turduckens and six-legged turkeys were all madden it's funny the number of people that aren't sure how many legs are on a turkey you know how did you get six now i know a turkey has four legs but how did you get six out of them how'd you get four on it and of course what john did too is he spawned the succession of imitators did you see what chad johnson did in the off season he beat a horse in a race but if you ask me it wasn't fair chad should have had a jockey on his back too the kind of broadcaster he was was what set him up for everything else what separated him from motherboard he was the everyman he was the guy next door he was the guy he went up a beer with which is what made him a great spokesman then you scramble around like a crazy guy trying to make the big meeting you can blow your whole career he was the guy he said to you hey if this lawnmower is good it was good have this beer it's pretty good he wasn't slick that's what made him so compelling so i've probably in my lifetime broken through more paper than anyone in the world the world record for that like i was saying white beer tastes great he also sold over a hundred million copies of his madden video game [Music] it all began in 1984 when madden was approached by tripp hawkins [Music] he was basically going to be the announcer of the game that you might play or that you might play with a friend he's going to be the announcer now this is what the game of football is all about and then of course if you're playing against him he's going to be the rival coach and when you're calling your plays if you weren't sure what to do you could ask him for his advice even if the defense expects a run on first down i'd still run it right at him it's ironic actually because years later john would say i can't believe that i'm best known for a video game and you know i don't think any of us could have imagined that that would happen you know people don't say i'm going to play video game football people say i'm going to play madden you know what i mean that's what they say i'm going to play madden blows your mind every year how you doing again that was luck you know i mean there was no way we sat down or i sat down and said i'm gonna make a video i didn't even know what a video game was but as a coach and broadcaster madden always knew when it was time to walk away after 30 years with rows of emmys in his office he hung up the mic in 2009 the game was great and unexpectedly great john of course was on top of the game perfectly what ben does i mean he's he's so big and strong that he can he can find time he can move a little he can pump bring it back reload it and still get it out there oh no but three months later john would retire and classically john madden he didn't make a long speech about it he just said it's time but john madden's football life was far from over i'm a hang guy i love to hang out i love to hang out tell stories one of my favorite things and playing coaches was the bus rides in 2006 the bus rolled past the old seven-man blocking sled to take one man on the ride of his life [Music] john madden was heading to canton to be enshrined in the pro football hall of fame despite winning 100 games faster than anyone and having a better winning percentage than many hall of fame coaches including vince lombardi madden had waited decades for the call he just enjoyed the country enjoyed the travel enjoyed the mom and pop restaurants and small towns whether it's van horn texas or lincoln nebraska or just he loved that part of it i like to hear what they do how they got there what they do i mean that was always what do you do out here madden's journey to the hall of fame was in 2006 before it joyful wins after it the sad loss of many he'd coached and long time friend pat summerhall first goodbye with pat was at cbs then we both went to fox this is the third goodbye it's the toughest goodbye pat rest in peace i love you every football life has sad shadows cast over it that was true for madden who had to wait for years to finally be cast in bronze first year that i was eligible to go into hall of fame i was a finalist and i didn't make it it went like 20 20 years and i wasn't even on the list and so after a while you know you kind of have to laugh when the 2006 class was announced madden was in detroit preparing to broadcast super bowl 40. it's the nfl network and there's rich eisen he says pro football hall of fame class of 2006 announcement press conference troy aikman troy aikman harry carson harry carson then john madden john madden and like the room exploded and it happened so fast that fred and drew as director and producer they were in mid-hug and my camera came out it was shaking and i've got this blurry picture and i don't remember what i look like or what happened but i just had tingles all over me we watched the nfl network they're gonna announce it and i said they can't take this away can i mean they can't say we're kidding we want it back you can't you know fly to hawaii the cruiser finally arrived but it went past the hall and out to the canton airport he walks on and takes the the mic from the flight attendant and and welcomes everyone yeah welcome to canton everyone this is the first time i've been on an airplane since 1910 [Laughter] i'm just so happy to have all of you here and and being part of this and i just want to say just have fun if you have any questions or you have anything you need don't ask me jim said doctor who would say i used to always tell the team don't worry about the horse being blind just load the wagon go get it today is a very emotional and inspirational experience for me to present the great john madden into the enshrinement in the pro football hall of fame today feels like the second time in my life that i'm being carried off the shoulders of others yet instead of off the field it's into the hall of fame and instead of five or six guys today i ride in the shoulders of hundreds of friends coaches players colleagues family and i just say this i thank you all very much this has been the sweetest ride of them all thank you madden's football lives continue he watches all the games at his production facility and advises the nfl's competition committee and safety panel just because i'm not actively broadcasting or actively doing that i still love it i'm still interested in it i still want to know what they're doing i still want to know why they do it and the next thing that comes is you got shotgun and you have to get shotgun runs so when i do this i'm always thinking about how can we make the game better between the safety issues and the rule issues that keeps me pretty much involved in the nfl madden will always be a part of the conversation especially at night in the hall of fame after all the people leave when the last guy closes the door i believe that the busts talk to each other madden would share stories into the wee hours but when it comes to his own lasting legacy he's at a loss for words i don't think about that i don't think that's up to me you know and i really i honestly don't i don't think about that i uh i don't know i don't know we loved john madden he was true to himself he was true to the people that were around him he cared about people he loved people he loved his players he loved his family he only wanted the best for all of us it's a hall of fame football coach he was a gigantic television star why because the bit of advice that everybody gets that's easy to say but hard to follow be yourself he was able to be himself in spades and people loved it i looked at so many people that never did what they wanted to do yeah maybe a little happy i look at john matt as the one guy that i could point to that did what he wanted to do the whole his whole life you sit in a room with him and it's like what am i gonna add to this i'll just be quiet and take it all in and i also know that those around him really consider themselves lucky and part of his inner group remember that guy that you loved the most when you were growing up he was your school teacher who was the most brilliant yet at the same time really cared about you the guy who came and sat with you and played cards or maybe even later on video games well he exists he exists his name is john madden there's no pretentiousness just a guy who i know cared about me and i cared about him and and and it's so damn much fun he's been in the public eye so long and we live in this gotcha society by being who he is and sticking to his guns he's never embarrassed himself and he's somebody uh from the time i was five years old to now 53 i've always been i've been proud of every single thing that he's ever done you know the word that i would use the strong sense of the word he's he's very intimate he cares about everything how can you find a game that you really like and you can stay in it your whole life and i'm so damn lucky that i was able to do that [Music] you

Channel: NFL Films

Views: 1,538,891

Keywords: NFL, Football, NFL Films, American Football

Id: Zc75Vrahc3M

Length: 43min 7sec (2587 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 04 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/FastAndBulbous8989]

BOOM

[u/insanelyphat]

Why did it take so long for John Madden to be inducted into the Hall of Fame? Like wtf!