John Madden's Role In Professional Sports

The Broadcast world has seen many iconic figures come into the spectrum. Baseball had Bob Costas, Basketball has had many former players come and go into the roles of key broadcaster but none of them could compare to this one man who would bring his natural talents of his voice and ability to communicate what was truly going on in a game like John Madden. John Madden had the background as a former player and coach that would give him an outlook on the game of football that no one has ever had. John was a incredibly easy person to listen to because he did not sound like some of the announcers of the time who only went by the books on how broadcasting was suppose to be presented. John Madden tested the limits of broadcasting to bring a view of the game that no one has ever presented to the NFL fans.

John madden was born April 10, 1936 in Austin,

Minnesota. He was the son of Earl and Mary Madden. John Madden grew up in a automotive shop watching his father build cars. It was not until 1942 around his 6th birthday before his family would have the chance to move to bigger and better thing in Daly City, California. After moving to Daly City, Johns father would begin to encourage john about the importance of sports. He grew up playing Football, Baseball and basketball at Jefferson High School. John Madden’s family had no history of attending college, and it wasn’t until john was working at the San Francisco Golf Club his senior year of high school before he would decide to be the first Madden to attend college.

John was an exceptional football player; he had the size and skills it to compete at the collegiate level. With his decision to chase after a college education, John began to recognition from many schools to come play football. In 1957 the University of Oregon ducks would pick up John and even provided him with a scholarship to play, but little did he know that a small knee injury would keep him from playing his freshman year. John would be hit with the fact that he could not play football and turned to furthering his education. He studied pre- law but then soon realized that he had made a wrong decision. John would end up leaving Oregon and head back to California to attend California polytechnic in San Luis Obispo, California. John would study education and finally get his chance to play college football. John would start two years at both offensive and defensive tackle. John would show out as a natural athlete and was beginning to get scouted by several profession NFL teams.

The Philadelphia eagles drafted John in 1958 in the 21st round. His one-year career came to a scorching halt when his same knee injury that side lined him in college had sidelined him again as a professional. John never made it outside of training camp before his career was over with.
Even though John Madden’s playing career was over, he had no intension on leaving the game as a whole. He returned to California Polytechnic to earn a master's degree in education. It was at California Polytechnic where John met his wife, Virginia fields; they were both in the educational masters program together. They later married and had two sons, Mike and Joe. Madden was also employed as a physical education teacher in Santa Maria, California, and had begun a coaching career on the college level, becoming assistant coach at Allan Hancock Junior College.
In 1962, Madden was given the opportunity to become the head coach at Hancock, spending two years there. His team posted a record of 12-6 during his stent as head coach. John was gaining a name in the coaching world because he had a logic that would be his focus for all of his teams in the future. John knew that defense was what would keep you in contention to win any game. In 1964, Madden moved on to San Diego State University, working as a defensive coordinator. He spent two years there, and the team had a record of 26-4.
The dominating defense of the San Diego state Aztecs would show the world that John Madden had a real gift as a coach and the Oakland raiders would see this special way of coaching and offer Madden a job in 1967 as a linebacker coach.

His first year with the team was effective because of maddens redesign of how the defense tackled the game. The Raiders made it to Super Bowl II, but lost to the Green Bay Packers. In 1969, Madden was promoted to head coach of the Raiders after The previous coach, John Rauch, had left the team because he believed that the owner Al Davis was interfering with his coaching. When Madden took over as head coach, he was only 33 years old and the youngest coach in NFL history.

John Madden was a successful head coach, spending ten years with the Raiders The raiders would win 7 division titles in those ten years and reached the playoffs eight times, and won at least ten games a season for seven seasons. In his rookie season as a coach, he posted a record of 12-1-1, and was named coach of the year. John would lead one team to a Super bowl championship in 1976 after defeating the Minnesota

Vikings.
In 1979, after the 1978-179 season ended, Madden would retire as coach of the Raiders out of now where. He was emotionally burned out as a coach and lost his passion to coach. Madden had a bleeding ulcer and needed to spend time in surgery and healing; also had a strained relationship with his sons which he wanted to attempt to re-establish. Over the course of his time coaching the Raiders, he posted a record of 103-32-7, with a.750 winning percentage. He became the first coach to spend ten years with the same team and win more than 100 games. When he retired, John Madden said he would never coach again.
John Madden would spend the next few years at home, but came to realize very quickly that his love for the game of football was calling him back to be apart of it somehow. He could not bare watching games in the stands or on the television. His agent through many tactics convinced him to dip his feet into the broadcasting side of the NFL games for CBS. John Madden agreed to join the team, though it was a big adjustment for someone who had spent two decades on the sidelines. With his incredible knowledge of the game, John Madden would bring a aspect to broadcasting that no one has ever had. Most broadcasters of the time had no knowledge of the sport except what was printed out for the,. John Madden began as a fill-in, but his off the wall personality worked well for television audiences. With his expert knowledge of the game, he would give fact and observations about the game that no one had ever presented before. Besides his intelligence and humor, He also did his homework, to prepare for television, he asked others in the business for advice. John Madden never stopped learning because he knew the game was going to continue to evolve through out his broadcast career. Not only did John have a natural gift at broadcasting he had to say this "When I did my first game, I immediately realized this was what I wanted to do. You see, I can't live without football. It's been part of my life since I was a little kid. I want to be involved in football and announcing the rest of my life." This acceptance of his fait as a broadcaster would be the start of the greatest sports announcer career ever.
John Madden quickly became known for his commentary than for his previous coaching career. By the early 1980s, he was CBS's head NFL analyst and teamed with Pat Summerall, which would be his broadcasting partner until 2002. John Madden and Pat Summerall covered all of the big games of the week and the Super Bowl. Madden contributed a new approach to the way broadcasters covered games. When he began his career in the late 1970s, little research was done before the games, and announcers would sounds short and lost in their commentary. By the early 1980s, John implemented some techniques that he used to break down the game as a coach, now he would give his listeners and viewers that same understanding when he and Pat Summerall would be analyzing for the week. Preparation was important to him and he took pride in doing it well. This drive to better the announcing and fan understanding of the game is what made John madden the perfect combination to have a fruitful career.
Madden was successful because he could communicate his ideas about football in way his audience could comprehend more than just watching the game as a entertainment platform, the fans would begin to actually realize the reasons why teams were better because of John Madden. As Sarah Pileggi wrote in Sports Illustrated, "Talking is what Madden does best. He is a born communicator. His talent for putting thoughts into words that engage the attention of a particular audience and his special knack for infusing these words with his own personality have been the keys to his success not only as a broadcaster but also as a coach." This technique and Madden's approach came to begin a new era of sports broadcasting.
John Madden become such a superstar that many company’s outside of football wanted him to be affiliated with him. The television show “Cheers” offered him a spot on the show but did not take it because it would have taken a good chunk of his time away from his commitment to the NFL. In 1988 EA studios approached John Madden with the idea of making a Football Video game that would harness his amazing commentary skills into a video game. This game would be called Madden NFL. The video game world was very bland when it came to sounds and personalities of the sports game, John madden would be the most recognizable sports announcer already and the game took of like a wild fire. The game today is still the number on football video game and has beet many companies that have tried to make a NFL based video game.
His most Common bonus was in commercials. He stared in many of the amazing number of commercial endorsement offers he received, representing Ace Hardware and Miller Lite beer for a number of years, as well as Tinactin, and many others. Because of the sheer number of spots he appeared in, John Madden would eventually build a $1 million studio near his home so he would not have to travel to tape the commercials.
In 1994, the team of John Madden and Pat Summeral signed with Fox after the network bought the rights to televise football games in 1993. He had considered going to ABC (American Broadcasting Company) for Monday Night Football or NBC (National Broadcasting Company) which also had some football rights. John Madden's deal was worth eight million dollars a year over four years, a true value to how his power and popularity as a broadcaster. With his new contract, John Madden built his own tour bus, named the Madden Cruiser. John hated flying so the bus was the best way for him to get across the country to all his games he would broadcast. In 1998, his first contract with Fox sports ended, Madden signed a five-year extension with Fox, but also considered thought about moving to ABC. Madden also continued to make millions per year for endorsements, remaining at the top of his field as a broadcaster and a television figure.
In 2002, after the Super Bowl 36, John Madden and Pat Summerall made the decision to split up as a team. Pat Summerall had the tough decision to retire from full-time work at Fox, but he did still do regional football broadcasts for Fox on the rare occasion. After considering his choices as a broadcaster, and not wanting to retire Madden finally decided to sign with ABC to do Monday Night Football broadcasts with Al Michaels. With Monday Night football on a degrading trend with the ratings of the show, ABC hoped that the fact that the world greatest sports announcer being the face of the show that they would be pulled out of their rut.
Madden won many awards as a broadcaster including winning 13 of the 15 Emmy Awards he was nominated for over the course of his broadcasting career, as well as many other awards through his time. He planned to continue working as a broadcaster as long he was physically capable of doing it. He told Michael Silver of Sports Illustrated, "It's fun, and it is my life and my passion and my recreation—it's everything. I was at a golf tournament, and I met a guy who was a year behind me in high school, and he's retiring. I said, 'Let me get this straight: You're retiring, and I just signed a four-year contract. One of us is going in the wrong direction."
Pure passion is what is missing from announcers today. Yes, having a great degree and an abundant knowledge of how to broadcast sporting event is good to have, but the pure knowledge of the game of football and his ability to make people feel like they are at the game is what made John madden the greatest sports announcer of his time.