Credit: Library of Congress
This is a new newsletter, one that will focus on the rich lives of people before they die. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the experience of reading an obituary and only then understanding what an amazing person the recently deceased was. More than once, I’ve wondered why popular culture didn’t make this aspect of the person better known. This newsletter seeks to remedy this.
This newsletter will address this “problem” in two ways: 1) articles about the recently departed and 2) articles about those still with us. With respect for the recently departed, I will explore a misunderstood and little known aspect of the person. With the appreciation of those who are still with us, my goal is that these issues will read like a pre-obituary.
The first issue is on John Madden, the famed football broadcaster, video game namesake, ad pitchman, and legendary football coach. Many of the obituaries laud his many amazing qualities and achievements. To be sure, Madden’s impact on football and professional sports was probably greatest as a broadcaster who remade how analysts communicated to viewers what was happening on the field. However, the obituaries and remembrances have tended, in my view, to gloss over the amazing run he had as the head coach of the mighty Oakland Raiders, one of the National Football Leagues’ (NFL) signal franchises led by perhaps the most Machiavellian, ruthless, egalitarian, brilliant, and decent multi-faceted owner in the history of sports, Al Davis (see here, here, here, or here.)
You might have read that Madden was named head coach when he was 32 in 1969. Madden had never been a head coach at the professional level, but he had something that appealed to Al Davis: a combination of football smarts and interpersonal skills. However amazing that seems today, it was a different time in the NFL. For example, Don Shula, the coach who legendarily led the Colts and Dolphins and won more games than any other coach, was first named head coach at 33. Pittsburgh Steelers coach Chuck Noll was 37 when he took over, and Dallas’ iconic coach Tom Landry was 35 or 36 when he began his 29 year run helming the Cowboys. What’s more, Madden had experience as the head coach at Allan Hancock College in the early 60’s before transitioning to assistant roles at a higher profile college and ultimately as the Raiders’ linebacker coach. And so, the novelty of Madden landing the top job in Oakland at 32 is a bit misplaced.
What is not misplaced are the raves about Madden’s personnel and management skills. Professional football in the late 1960’s was driven by men who believed teams and players thrived on almost militaristic discipline and order. One wonders how much the experience of serving during World War II shaped these coaches view on football. Be that as it may, one of Madden’s famed contemporaries, Minnesota Vikings coach Bud Grant was renowned for his disciplinarian approach:
Over his tenure as Vikings head coach, Grant was known for instilling discipline in his teams and displaying a lack of emotion during games.[1] He believed that football is a game of controlled emotion and teams would not follow the coach's lead if he were to panic or lose his poise during the course of a game.[3] He required his team to stand at attention in a straight line during the entire national anthem played before the game and even had national anthem practice.[1] Grant required outdoor practice during the winter to get players used to the cold weather[7] and did not allow heaters on the sidelines during games.[1]
By contrast, Madden explained his views on discipline in a 1983 interview:
"I really believe," says Madden, "that normal people are only capable of accomplishing normal things. I don't know that I ever had a great player that was normal. To get outstanding performance you get some people that are a little left of plumb. I believed in letting them alone, personality-wise, giving them freedom, not thwarting them. In football you're doing things that aren't normal—running at high speeds, hitting and being hit, and getting tired and sore and hurt. That's not normal, yet some coaches want that same person to take off his gear and go be normal. They call it discipline. Bull. That's not discipline. It has nothing to do with discipline. I've seen teams that have dress codes, hair codes, this code, that code, all having nothing to do with winning and losing. They'll get to third down, short yardage, and three guys'll jump offside. I mean those guys come in and they look nice in the lobby, and then they jump offside. Those are undisciplined sons of guns. I'll take a guy that's wearing a T shirt and a pair of jeans and tennis shoes in the lobby, who when it's third down doesn't budge till the ball's snapped. That's discipline."
In this vein, Madden famously had three rules for players to follow: 1) be on time; 2) pay attention; and 3) “play like Hell when I tell you to.” Madden often joked if he only had three rules, it would be harder for players to break the rules.
The results seem to speak for themselves. Madden was spectacular as a head coach with a record of 103-32-7 in the regular season and 112-39-7 record with one Super Bowl championship when the playoffs are factored in. This was an astounding run of excellence. What’s more, he had a winning record in games against Hall of Fame coaches, including Landry and Grant, the latter of whom he beat handily in the Super Bowl.
And yet, unlike many other coaches in their first job, Madden inherited a team coming a loss in Super Bowl II stacked with future Hall of Famers. Having said that, many of this team’s players were gone by 1976 when Madden and the Raiders finally surmounted the unmovable object that was the Pittsburgh Steelers and made it to the Super Bowl.
Speaking of the players Madden skillfully taught and coached, as he mentioned, they were a wild bunch. Owner Al Davis took perverse interest and pride in a having roster full of characters. Just listen to the nicknames of some of the players Madden coached: The Snake, Dr. Death, the Assassin, the Ghost, and others. One famous player had two different nicknames: Kick ‘Em or the Mad Stork. There was an old joke about the Raiders that had a touch of truth: you didn’t need to be a convicted felon to play for the Raiders, but it helped.
During Madden’s time in Oakland from 1969 to 1978, there were a number of players who had been banished from other teams because of odd temperaments or any manner of missteps, or had never given a chance. For example, defensive lineman John Matusak had been discarded by three different teams, and one coach famously remarked Matusak consumed the breakfast of champions: vodka and valium. According to Pat Toomey, Matusak’s teammate in Oakland, Madden had an uncommon touch with players like this:
"When he arrived, I wasn't about to talk to him about his past," Madden reflected later. "In his travels, every coach and every amateur psychologist had lectured him. He was more experienced at hearing that speech than I was at giving it. He had a reputation as a disruptive influence, but I hadn't phoned George Allen or the coaches in Kansas City and Houston for his report card. Whatever he did that they got rid of him for, if he did it with us, he was gone, too. If you know too much about a guy, you tend to prejudge him, to hold his past against him. I wasn't a psychiatrist or psychologist. I was a football coach. If you play football for me, good. If you screw up, goodbye."
Toomey also lauded Madden’s skill in managing all players and the club’s owner to boot:
Madden's populist touch, his willingness to play the role of "good father" to this band of renegades strengthened the sense of "family" that existed on the club, however "weird" the family, in its constituent elements, might prove to be. And with Charlie around, and "Doctor Death," and Ted "Kick 'em in the Head" Hendricks, who, on Halloween, would show up for practice wearing a pumpkin for a helmet. With an owner who wore black all the time, who drove a black Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham with black tinted windows and no license plates. With an owner who sported a garish, black-onyx bracelet with "Al" spelled out on it in diamonds…
Well, with this group, things could get pretty weird indeed. Thankfully, Madden was there to hold it all together. Actually, he was working his magic now, as he schmoozed the guys. Just his attention galvanized everyone. Of course his efforts weren't entirely altruistic.
Another player who had two different stints in Oakland, tight end Raymond Chester, called Madden “one of the greatest communicators of our age.” Chester recalled Madden’s call about getting traded back to the Raiders. Chester added “If you coach, the most important thing that you must be able to do is get what you want done across to your players.”
Or consider Madden’s deft touch in convincing a reluctant player to switch from one position to another:
In 1977, Madden walked up to his fifth-round draft pick, All-American safety Lester Hayes, and told him he would be playing cornerback as a pro. Hayes had begrudgingly switched from linebacker to safety at Texas A&M. The last thing he wanted was to get further away from hitting people. Now Madden was asking -- no, telling -- him to play corner. "I started bawling like a newborn baby," Hayes says.
Hayes sobbed and begged Madden, right there on the practice field, to reconsider. He didn't eat lunch or dinner that day, then came back for evening practice still pleading with his coach.
Madden was firm but gentle. He told Hayes he was a former Texas prep sprint champion and that would translate better to playing one-on-one with wideouts. He promised Hayes he'd still have plenty of opportunities to try to decleat ball carriers from his new position.
"There was something in his eyes that made me trust him," Hayes says. "John has that ability to see something in people that they didn't know existed. Thank God he saw it in me."
Hayes would, of course, become one of the all-time great cornerbacks, and not only did Madden see his potential, but he talked him into doing something he didn’t want to do.
Madden’s care of and regard for players extended beyond his own. After Oakland’s Jack Tatum hit and inadvertently paralyzed New England wide receiver Darryl Stingley in a 1978 preseason game, Madden ended up treating the player as if he were his own. Per a 1979 New York Times article, Madden only learned the extent of Stingley’s injury after the game and immediately wanted to know where Stingley was. Then, Madden proceeded to the hospital and insisted that the doctors prepping Stingley for surgery allow him to speak to the player. Garbed in surgical scrubs, Madden told Stingley it would all be okay. Next Madden called the Oakland Airport where the Patriots’ plane was taxiing for departure and insisted that he talk to the head coach Chuck Fairbanks and that the team send someone to be with Stingley. Fairbanks said the team had sent a member of the front office. Soon thereafter, Stingley’s girlfriend flew in and Madden and his wife Virginia offered to let her stay in their home. She frequently dined with John and Virginia while Stingley was in Oakland. To sum up, Madden did for Stingley what his own head coach would not on the day of a life changing injury. What an uncommon coach indeed.
Madden’s acumen with people lasted long after he stepped down from coaching in Oakland, reportedly burnt out and suffering from ulcers. Madden chaired an NFL committee comprised of coaches with the goal of improving the game, and the coaches understood that Madden deftly achieved consensus and made them think they were running the body.
Going back to Toomey’s recollection of Madden, he assessed Madden’s skill as a coach at length in a two part post that ESPN still has up after all these years. Most interestingly, Toomey disagreed with Madden’s oft repeated reason for his hatred of flying that resulted in his taking trains and then the famed “Madden Cruiser” after leaving the NFL. Madden had always said he was okay with flying, but his claustrophobia made him want off the plane desperately once the door was closed.
Toomey posited that it wasn’t claustrophobia at all. In 1960, the plane carrying the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo football team crashed, killing 16 players and six others. Toomey asserted “The C46 had exploded and flipped in dense fog at an altitude of 100 feet…[and] [e]ngine problems were suspected.” He added:
A 1959 graduate, Madden had returned to campus in 1960 to do graduate work, after wrecking his knee in Eagles training camp. I vaguely knew this, but what I didn't know, and what wasn't mentioned in the Toledo article, was that Madden was supposed to be on that flight. I found this out when I dug up a column written by Washington Post reporter Ken Denlinger on the occasion of Madden's retirement. "As assured as Madden seemed publicly," Denlinger wrote, "there were signs of inner turmoil. Because a quirk of fate kept him off the plane that crashed and killed several Cal Poly San Luis Obispo players in 1960, Madden has avoided flying whenever possible."
For what it’s worth, in its obituary, The Los Angeles Times also suggested the crash as the real reason why Madden hated flying.
Nonetheless, Toomey hypothesized this is what helped make Madden the great coach of people he was:
That was all I needed to hear. As we know now, proximity to such a disaster can create what psychologists call an ensouled perspective. Madden's patience, caring and understanding, his tolerance and absolute refusal to judge, were no mere pretense, as cynics held, but rather a response to devastating loss. Madden's intimate knowledge of his own frailty enabled him to respond to frailty in others.
This was what made him the perfect coach for Al Davis and his quirky Raiders.
This sounds very much like what the wisest among us should aspire to, doesn’t it?