Thursday, April 16, 2009

John Madden Retires


John Madden has announced his retirement from broadcasting. While this news may be shocking to some, it shouldn't be a huge surprise. Last year, he broke a 476-week string by taking a week off in October.

For 30-somethings like me, Madden was NFL broadcasting. In the beginning, he was the fun guy who was excitable during the game and made noises to describe action ("boom").

He first was on CBS (1979-1994) where he quickly became their number one analyst. He was pared with Pat Summerall, who was an icon in his own right. Both moved to Fox (1994-2002) where his legend grew. When Summerall retired after Super Bowl XXXVI, Madden moved on to ABC's Monday Night Football (2002-2006) and pared with Al Michaels. The two moved to NBC's Sunday Night Football together in 2006.

His style became the norm for the business. Analysts suddenly became more empassioned in their calls. Attention to lineman grew. He was the only sportscaster to work for each of the "big four networks".

He was the "touch actin' Tinactin" guy. He was the Ace Hardware guy. He did Miller Lite and Rent-A-Center commercials.

But he also was a brand name. His Madden football video games have been part of my life for over two decades. I had Madden on Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Playstations 1, 2 and 3. I remember the days where all the players looked alike and the only differences was the color of the uniform. Now Madden has become nearly lifelike and one of the top selling video games in the world.

Yeah, Madden could be grating at times and sometimes turned into a characture of himself. But I've always felt strongly about his contributions to the game I love and its popularity.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Legend NFL-retire!!!
73-year-old John Madden is calling it quits.
NBC said- he has decided to retire.See more here:John Madden-retire

Pat R said...

the only thing John Madden did better than comment on football was sell anti-fungal foot medication