R.I.P.: John Madden, Legendary Football Personality, Coach

John Madden 1936-2021

John Madden, a Super Bowl-winning coach who became the pre-eminent sports commentator and was the brand name for the leading football video game, has died. He was 85.

Bloomberg reports he died unexpectedly Tuesday morning, the National Football League said in a statement on Tuesday. No cause was given. 

“There will never be another John Madden, and we will forever be indebted to him for all he did to make football and the NFL what it is today,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said.

Madden, outsized and gregarious, first earned fame during his 10 years as the no-nonsense head coach of the National Football League’s Oakland Raiders, starting in 1969. His regular season record was 103 wins, 32 losses and 7 ties, the best winning percentage among the league’s coaches with at least 100 career victories.

“Few individuals meant as much to the growth and popularity of professional football as Coach Madden, whose impact on the game both on and off the field was immeasurable,” the Raiders, now based in Las Vegas, said in a statement.

Madden’s Raiders captured their first championship with a 32–14 win over the Minnesota Vikings in 1977. He was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006.

By the time of his Hall of Fame induction, he had become the sport’s best known color commentator. He started with CBS, in 1979, delighting fans with his trademark interjections to punctuate good or awful plays: “Boom!” “Whap!” “Bang!” and “Doink.”

Later he worked for Fox, ABC, and NBC as the various networks won the rights to broadcast NFL games and persuaded Madden to join them. He retired in 2009 from TV broadcasting, having partnered with Pat Summerall and Al Michaels, among other well-known play-by-play announcers. He won 16 Emmy awards during his three decades as a broadcaster.

He also pioneered use of the telestrator, a device that allowed him to superimpose light-pen diagrams over video footage to illustrate plays. He also created a personal Hall of Fame — the “All Madden” team — to honor athletes he thought played football the right way, that is, his way.

He endeared himself to fans by traveling from game to game by bus or train to deal with a fear of flying.

Madden was so likable, he became a pitchman for a variety of products, including Ace Hardware, Miller Lite, Outback Steakhouse and Tinactin, the athlete’s foot treatment he said was “tough actin’.”

Among younger fans he was best known for the EA Sports/Electronic Arts video game that bore his name and input and was a regular best-seller each time it came out in a new edition. The games, introduced in 1988, were so popular that they spawned TV shows featuring competitions of players.

“The younger generation of football fans was introduced to the NFL because of the computer game,” ESPN columnist Len Pasquarelli said his review of the 2006 version of the game. “For that generation, Madden is, essentially, the face of the NFL.”

John Earl Madden was born on April 10, 1936, in Austin, Minnesota, to Earl and Mary Flaherty Madden. His father, an auto mechanic, moved the family to Daly City, California, where Madden attended high school.

He played college football at several schools before transferring to California Polytechnic State University, known as Cal Poly, where he played both offense and defense. While there he earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s in education.

He was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles but suffered a knee injury in training camp that ended his playing career.