SPANISH HARLEM – Growing up, John Madden had a special place in my heart. I was a kid and one of the coolest things you could do at my age was play video games. I loved sports and I had every sports game you can can imagine. I even played hockey games because they were fun but no game was as big as Madden Football. I didn’t even know he was the coach of the Raiders until later on. For me, and for a long time, he was the man from the video games.
Every kid that played videos games, played Madden. You would have friends come over and do a tournament to see who the best was that day. Kids would talk trash about who the best was. It was as if you were walking around with an invisible belt that everyone knew you had. If you had lost, you would go home and play until you perfected your strategy and wait for the next opportunity to prove yourself. Even if you didn’t much about football at the time, you knew who John Madden was.
By the time I was old enough to understand what he meant to the game of football, He was a broadcaster and the person you wanted on your television during the season’s biggest games. He was cool and animated. His mannerisms were unique. He felt like your big, older friend who invited you over to his house to watch a game. He loved football and it showed. You knew you were watching someone that cared about the game and cared about how you saw it through him.
John Madden made football exciting. He made it fun and he made football cool to me.
RIP Big Guy!
That’s it for now, come back tomorrow for more content from Curious Cam James.
Until next time…
