Late NFL great John Madden played football at Cal Poly, where he’s a Hall of Famer
Hall of Fame NFL coach and announcer John Madden — who played football at Cal Poly in the 1950s and is one of the university’s most famous alumni — died Tuesday at the age of 85.
Madden was known for winning a Super Bowl title and overall success with the Oakland Raiders, as well as his folksy expressions and quirky musings as an NFL broadcaster.
But before achieving that fame, the football legend made a name for himself in San Luis Obispo, where he played football for two years and later returned to earn two college degrees.
“John Madden is a true Mustang, a legendary role model for us all,” Cal Poly president Jeff Armstrong said in a news release Wednesday, “whether on the field, as a coach, a commentator or a husband, father and grandfather to his family. May he always lead the way and ‘Ride High’ among the Mustang family for generations to come.”
Madden, a member of the Mustangs Athletic Hall of Fame, recalled the role that Cal Poly played in his life and career in a multi-part Tribune series in 2009 about his local ties.
Madden played football at Cal Poly in 1957 and 1958 before he was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in 1958. A knee injury ended his playing career before he ever set foot on the field in a professional game.
Madden also served as an assistant coach at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria in 1960 and was promoted to head coach there in 1962, before moving on to a defensive assistant coach position at San Diego State, where he served between 1964-1966.
While deciding on enrolling in college, on a trip down California’s Coast with a friend, Madden settled on attending Cal Poly after nearly turning around after encountering a blistering hot day in Paso Robles.
“We got to Paso Robles, and it was about 105 degrees,” Madden, a Bay Area native, told former Tribune reporter Donovan Aird. “I said, ‘This is way too hot! I can’t go here!’ And then the guy with me said, ‘Come on, we came this far. All we have to do is go down the hill.’
“Then, the 105 degrees turned into 90, then 80, then 75,” he continued. “We got down to San Luis Obispo, and it was beautiful. But we damn near turned around. Talk about a fork in the road.”
During Cal Poly’s virtual commencement exercises last June, Madden received an honorary doctor of science degree, according to the Cal Poly release.
Cal Poly’s athletic director, Don Olberhelman, recognized him for his contributions on and off the field.
“You would be hard-pressed to find someone who has meant more to the sport of football than John Madden,” said Oberhelman in Cal Poly’s statement. “As a former player and alumnus, his support and involvement in our football program has meant the world to all of us at Cal Poly.”
Cal Poly years
During his time at Cal Poly, Madden played on the offensive and defensive lines.
He was known for his athleticism as an imposing 6-foot-4, 260-pound player, shining on the offensive line as a blocker.
Even long after his career, teammates recalled him hunting down a San Diego Marine Corps player on an interception to make a spectacular tackle and prevent a touchdown just in front of the goal line in a 27-14 win.
“I think that indicated to people the kind of athletic ability he had for a guy his size,” said Dick Mannini, a former teammate.
“One of the things I could do was run,” Madden told The Tribune in 2009.
Madden also played on the Mustangs’ baseball team as a catcher in 1958.
After his NFL playing hopes were dashed, Madden returned to the Central Coast, where he met his future wife, Virginia Fields, and earned his teaching credential and then a master’s degree in physical education from Cal Poly in 1961. They remained married for 62 years, and lived in Pleasanton until his recent death, according to Cal Poly.
He also considered a career in law, but his calling was to become a coach.
During the 1960 season, when Madden was an assistant coach, Hancock football recorded a perfect season and won the state title, the college said in a news release.
Later in his career, he remained a “vocal advocate for the transformative power of college athletics and community colleges,” Hancock said.
“Coach Madden was a very special part of Hancock football history which players and coaches remember fondly,” said Hancock Athletic Director Kim Ensing in a statement. “Our hearts are heavy, and we express our sincere condolences to his family.”
After his college coaching stints, Madden was hired by Al Davis as linebackers coach for the Raiders, before becoming Oakland’s head coach in 1969 and compiling a 103-32-7 regular season record over 10 years.
The iconic images of Madden, arm raised in victory, hoisted up on the shoulders of his players after the team won the Super Bowl in the 1976 season, often appear in NFL history and Raiders legacy coverage.
After his retirement, Madden focused on a broadcasting career in which he covered 11 Super Bowls for four networks from 1979 to 2009, as well as 16 Emmy Awards, while his use of the phrase “Boom” for big tackles became a signature, along with his energetic use of the Telestrator to illustrate plays and schemes on the field.
Cal Poly support
Madden was one of Cal Poly’s biggest fundraisers for its sports programs in the 1980s, lending his name to an annual golf charity.
In 1991, when the school’s athletic department encountered a financial crisis, Madden stepped in to help persuade students to vote yes on a referendum to pay $35 more per quarter by 1994 in order to prevent the then-Division II school from dropping eight sports (including football) and instead elevate all of its 16 sports to the Division I level over a three-year span.
“It’s what we needed,” Madden told The Tribune of the support in 2009. “We were going to lose football. We came very close. It was something to fight for, so I was really heavily involved to keep it going.”
But Madden later distanced himself from Cal Poly in the late 1990s, saying the school allowed its football program to be significantly bypassed in facilities, opponents and opportunities by Fresno State, San Jose State and San Diego State.
He wanted the Mustangs to be the top state university football program in California.
“They just jumped ahead of us,” Madden said of the three schools.
Madden hoped Cal Poly could build a bigger stadium and increase the program’s sports profile by getting “back to bigger games against bigger-name teams.”
Madden said he was open to staying involved with Cal Poly, adding in 2009 that “there’s going to be another opportunity, but it’s not now.”
Athletic director talks Madden influence
Oberhelman called Madden “a great communicator” who could relate to people of all educational and experience levels in football and beyond.
He said the university, largely due to the efforts of President Armstrong, had reconnected with Madden and formed a strong relationship in recent years.
“We’ve talked a lot about what the future of football looks like,” Oberhelman said. “He’s had a lot of conversations with our president (Armstrong) more so than anybody else and he gave us advice. And I think the two of them talked more than just Cal Poly football.”
Oberhelman said that Cal Poly football coach Beau Baldwin, Armstrong and he all had conversations with Madden, who lived in Pleasanton, in recent years.
They visited Madden at his home and a property that he owns in the Bay Area.
“(Armstrong) kept reaching out to Coach Madden and kept reaching out to him to communicate with him and let him know we’re interested in strengthening the relationship and Coach Madden responded to it,” Oberhelman said. “Then he became responsive to every single outreach by any of us at Cal Poly.”
Oberhelman said they had conversations about the direction of Cal Poly football, recruiting, facilities, and how best to achieve success for the program.
“I would say he was very, very actively involved with looking at what our needs are and looking at what our competitors have,”
Oberhelman said. “And we talked about how do we get to that point where we’re in contention for an FCS national championship because that seemed to be what he really wanted to see us achieve, and I’m deeply saddened that he won’t get to see it.”
Oberhelman added: “We’re all in mourning. I think we also want to remember who he was, how awesome he was, how hilarious he was, and how that guy did it all. What a life.”
Impact of Cal Poly plane crash
A plane crash that took the lives of several Mustangs’ football players in 1960 affected Madden, who knew many of the people on board.
The crash near Toledo, Ohio, killed 22 of the 48 passengers, including both pilots, 16 players, a student manager, and a program booster.
The day after the wreck, Madden returned to the Cal Poly campus to console friends and families, according to a 2008 Associated Press article.
Over time, stories spread that he was on the plane, and that the crash caused his fear of flying.
“Neither one is true,” Madden told the AP. “I didn’t like getting on planes before that. I got claustrophobic, and it got worse over the years.”
To avoid flights, Madden was known to take an RV across country to call games late in his career as a broadcaster.
Cultural impact and family
According to Cal Poly, Madden wrote five books — “Hey, Wait a Minute, I Wrote a Book,” “All Madden: Hey, I’m Talking Pro Football,” “The First Book of Football,” “One Size Doesn’t Fit All,” and “Everything Else You Need to Know About Football.”
Madden also lent his name to the EA Sports video game, Madden NFL, which has sold over 250 million copies, and appeared in two movies, “Little Giants” and “The Replacements.”
John and Virginia Madden were married in 1959 in Santa Maria, Calif., and had two children, sons Michael and Joseph, Cal Poly officials said.
Michael was a wide receiver at Harvard while Joseph played football at Brown. John and Virginia also have five grandchildren.
He was born April 10, 1936, in Austin, Minn., and grew up in Daly City, working as a caddie at San Francisco Golf Club.
The NFL announced Madden’s death in a statement but didn’t include the cause.
“John Madden is as important as anybody in the history of football,” Al Michaels, his broadcast partner from 2002 through 2008 with ABC and NBC, said in an interview in 2013, according to a New York Times obituary published on Tuesday. “Tell me somebody who did all of the things that John did, and did them over this long a period of time.”
This story was originally published December 28, 2021 at 7:22 PM with the headline "Late NFL great John Madden played football at Cal Poly, where he’s a Hall of Famer."
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