John Madden passed away on December 28th at the age of 85 leaving behind of the most memorable and lasting impacts on football in American history. Although he stopped coaching in the NFL (1978) before I was born, retired from the television booth well over 10 years ago, and hadn’t been in the spotlight much at all for a long time, his death was a reminder of just how much of a cultural significance he had in our country.

This was arguably a Mount Rushmore NFL personality, especially for someone who never played in the league.

Iconic Booth Vibe with Pat Summerall

I have vague memories of the Madden and Pat Summerall booth during the years at CBS together (1981-93) but it was when Fox won the bidding rights away from CBS and the duo moved networks for 1994 that they’d hit their peak for many of my age. At the time, Dallas quarterback Troy Aikman signed a new deal paying him $1.9 million for 1994 and Madden was rumored to be making even more than that annually with Fox.

He was worth every penny and more.

Didn’t it always seem like Madden did every Cowboys game at the old Texas Stadium? I know he called so many games but when I think about Madden it always takes me back to afternoons watching the ‘Boys beat up on another team.

You can hear Summerall & Madden looking at this picture. 

Of course, there were all of those Thanksgiving games with the Cowboys that eventually turned into yet another Madden tradition given to us all with the post-game turkey leg award. Any time I see footage of those 1990’s games in Dallas with the partial shadows dominated by the bright white natural light coming in from the open roof I instantly think of Madden’s weird quips.

Frank Caliendo’s Impersonation

It was early second semester in January 2003 when a couple college buddies of mine told me I had to listen to this skit by a comedian impersonating John Madden. Most of my first couple years of college were a haze to say the least but this event on a bitterly cold New York night I remember in vivid detail.

I can remember the weird-shaped dorm room and placement of the beds and couches. We all crammed in and a friend sat at his desk no doubt loading up Limewire or Napster or whatever pirating system we all used at the time to download this clip from The Bob & Tom Show:

Nearly pissed myself on first hearing. 

I may not have ever laughed this hard in my life before or since. I don’t know what I expected but Caliendo’s impression has stuck with me ever since. This skit gave us years worth of inside jokes with each other. Ironically, the Summerall “Thanks John” was maybe the most popular for when anyone said a captain obvious thing among our friends.

NCAA Football Without Madden

I know I sparingly played some of the early Madden Football games on Sega in the early 1990’s but as you can see in the embedded video below a lot of those early offerings for the sport were rough to play at the time and even more dated now looking back. Electronic Arts first Madden game debuted in 1988 while the precursor to what would become the NCAA Football game, Bill Walsh College Football, didn’t come out until 1993.

Compare the videos below and Madden makes a decent jump in graphics from 1999, another jump in 2000, while 2001 was when the game first looked like it does today. The college game was really rough around the edges through 2001 until the 2002 game gave us the modern look which debuted on the PlayStation 2.

Madden’s influence on NCAA football video games. 

We really have to give thanks to John Madden because who knows what the evolution of the NCAA game looks like without him?

One of the best things about Madden was how perfect his voice and delivery was for color commentary on television and it transitioned perfectly to video games. Once Madden started hitting their stride with graphics having his voice available was a big part of driving the popularity of the game across the world. It just felt like a big deal and as close to the real thing as you’d find with a sports game.

The Weird Story of the Very First John Madden Game

I’m sure many of our readers would agree that the college football game was a better game overall than Madden. A lot of that has to do with the more complex nature of the college game and more teams to play, I think. If you’re reading this, odds are you think college is a better game than the NFL thus the video game was going to be better for you, too.

However, once Madden’s color commentary left the game fully in Madden 10 things never felt the same. It’s something I think the college game long struggled with–Brad Nessler and Kirk Herbstreit are mighty fine at their jobs yet don’t bring near the excitement or flavor that Madden could in the same digital role.

RIP to a legend. It’ll be pretty crazy to see just how long Madden’s name lives on over the decades thanks largely to the video game.