For a Generation of Gamers, John Madden Was Football

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Any '90s kid with a computer and a CD-ROM of Madden NFL could tell you about the man who taught them how to love the sport.

When I think of John Madden, the picture looks something like this.

I'm little, maybe 7 or 8 years old, parked in front of a tiny Windows computer. Madden's voice is booming from the other end of the speaker—he's in front of a chalkboard, I think—drawing X's and O's.

This is well before I started watching my hometown Pittsburgh Steelers every Sunday, when I'm just a sponge of a kid running around in circles at recess. And now, trolling around on my dad's '90s-era copy of Madden NFL, there's this big guy in a fancy white shirt saying words like pass and punt and pylon and I can't remember what else. He draws a play up on the board, jet-black squiggles and lines going every which way. Then, he passes the controller—a keyboard, back then—to me, and asks if I can try the play with the 11 animated blobs on my screen.

John Madden was teaching me about this mysterious thing my dad loved so much: football.

On December 28, Madden passed away, leaving behind a legacy few, sports world or not, can ever rival. The man was a successful player, coach, and commentator. One of Madden's greatest achievements, though, was trusting a fledgling video game developer, Electronic Arts, with the development of a football simulation with his name and face on it. Listen to 30 for 30's brilliant podcast on the birth of Madden NFL for the full origin story, but you know what happens next: A massively successful run of games under the name Madden NFL, releasing year after year, becomes one of the most storied gaming franchises of