John Madden: Retires from job

John Madden: Retires from job

John Madden, the famous NFL broadcaster, had taken the decision of seeking retirement. On Thursday he made the announcement.

On his Bay Area radio show John said, "I'm a grinder," "You just grind and get through it and when it's all over, you think about it. You don't rush into any decisions."

The exuberance of Madden for football and blue-collar persona brought him closer to TV viewers for 3 decades. As sudden as his signature call, he is going to leave midway through a six-year contract with NBC's "Sunday Night Football."

"I think his work ethic and passion and love for the game made him apart from everybody else," added longtime broadcast partner Pat Summerall.

According to Madden, his health is fine, but at the age of seventy three, he wanted to spend more and more time with his family. His 50th wedding anniversary will be held in this fall, and his 5 grandchildren are old enough to notice when he is gone.

Madden continued, "The thing that made it hard is not because I'm second guessing: `Is it the right decision?' But I enjoyed it so damn much," "I enjoyed the game and the players and the coaches and the film and the travel and everything."

Cris Collinsworth is going to replace Madden, thereby moving over from the network's studio show. This statement was made by NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol. Collinsworth filled in when Madden took a game off sometime during the last October.

Regarding Madden Ebersol added as “the absolute best sports broadcaster who ever lived."

Madden traveled by bus since he had a fear of flying. Along with the two Bay Area teams struggling and not hosting any Sunday night games, he would be on the road and away from his family through out the entire season.

However Madden is not going to sit at home all the time. He has been using the bus and staying busy with quite a number of endorsements. His "Madden NFL Football" is the top-selling sports video game of all time.

He made it a point that this will be his first season away from the sport since he was a freshman in high school.

Madden was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the year 2006. He started his pro career as a linebacker coach at Oakland in the year 1967 and was made head coach two years later, at 33 the youngest coach in what was then the American Football League.

Madden led the Raiders to their first Super Bowl victory and retired in the year 1979. He joined CBS later that year.

Till 1994 he worked at CBS when the network lost rights to broadcast NFL games, thereby leading him to switch to Fox. He left Fox in the year 2002 to be the lead analyst for ABC's "Monday Night Football" and joined NBC in 2006 when that network inaugurated a prime-time Sunday game.

Madden grabbed sixteen Emmy Awards and became one of the most familiar voices in television, thereby mixing high-volume enthusiasm with serious analysis on the telestrator.

Ebersol continued, "He was so consistently entertaining — that guy you really wanted to have on the couch with you, but larger than life," "I think people stayed with a rout or a bad game that Madden might have to broadcast in the second half (more) than they ever would have stayed with anybody else."

For the last several years, John Madden said that he waited till 2 months after the season in order to determine whether to continue and not wanting to rush into a decision.

Madden continued, “The last game I did was the Super Bowl, which was pretty good," "But, again, that wasn't planned. I didn't say, 'I want to go out on a high note.'"

He surprised Ebersol when he told him last week that he was retiring from job. On Wednesday morning Ebersol flew to California and spent eleven hours with Madden, in order to try to persuade him for changing his mind. Ebersol even offered to allow Madden to call games only in September and November and to take October and December off.

His longtime agent, Sandy Montag told people that he is not going to change his mind after making his retirement official. Madden didn't want a dramatic farewell — he didn't even appear on a conference call Thursday with Ebersol and Montag.

Madden continued, "It wouldn't have been me to say the week of the Super Bowl, 'This is my last game.'"

Summerall also added that he knew that Madden would be something special the first time they worked together.

Summerall remarked, “He didn't talk down to people," "He talked as if he was sitting next to you and explaining things to you."