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Rest on

Greatest Cal Poly Mustang ever.

I remember going to Raider's games at the Coliseum as a kid, our seats were pretty close to Daryl Lamonica. It gets pretty cold with that wind blowing off the bay. Madden would be charging up and down the sidelines in a damn golf shirt, no hat, no jacket. Looked like an escaped mental patient with the hair and the crazy eyes. Great football guy.

My dad had season tickets back to the Lamonica days. My brother and I were firing whole peanuts in the shell down below us. This lady with a big beehive hairdo with a scarf over it turned up to look up our way and the peanut lodged in her hairdo. Stayed there for a long time.

We had tickets the one year (I believe) that Warren Wells played. What an awesome long ball receiver!

My Aunts husband had Raiders season tickets for a long time. He worked in sales and was very good at it. There was no room at the Raider Inn for a HS/college kid during the Madden Run: I wonder why?

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1640813270.jpg

Never saw Madden live.

I went to a number of 49'ers games with my great uncle during that era. How much fun was that.:D

BTW, 7 ties!

As a kid it was all about Lamonica, Biletnikoff, Banaszak, Blanda, Otto, etc. I think they were still playing at Warren Field.

Lamonica could throw the ball to the moon I bet.

They had a game at the local high school where some media people played some Raiders in basketball. This would have been a year or two before they won the SB. A few memories of that.

Cliff Branch was a tiny little guy who could dunk a basketball with both hands

Fred Biletnikoff is even uglier in person than he is on TV

Jack Tatum was not as terrifying as you would think.

Ken Stabler was probably the coolest MFer who ever walked the Earth.

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Stabler was so cool he slithered left handed.... my favorite QB back then.

^^^
Archie Manning was similar.
I loved watching him play.

He was drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette in a high school parking lot when I met him. Cigarettes and beer, right before he played basketball for an hour. Had that southern drawl thing going on, made a big impression on pre-teen me.

I used to love watching Madden call Thanksgiving games . Remember the 8 legged turkey that he handed the legs out after the game to the guys he thought earned it ? What a great guy ........ RIP

Extraordinary story here about Fox obtaining NFL rights - Madden was a big part of their need for credibility at the outset:

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/12/13/18137938/nfl-fox-deal-rupert-murdoch-1993-john-madden-terry-bradshaw-howie-long-jimmy-johnson-cbs-nbc

I really recommend you look for the All Madden show on ESPN, that aired on Christmas day. It had a lot of insights into the man and how he lived his life. He was a HUGE key to Fox becoming a legitimate player in sports broadcasting when they won the rights to the NFL games. Howie Long likened it to an expansion team signing the No. 1 QB in all of football right at the start of their game playing.

didnt Madden start that bus driver obstacle contest? if i remember right, he never got on a plane but rolled around the country on a bus.

sorry, i'm not a football guy. but i do remember bus drivers hauling ass thru some drills to test their skills, all against each other and a stopwatch.

He flew when he was coaching because he had to, to meet schedules of games across the country. Once he quit coaching he never flew again. Trains proved to be too unreliable once he was broadcasting so someone came up with the idea of renting a bus. They got hold of one that Dolly Parton had and rented out when she wasn't using it. Madden loved it and said "We need to get a bus." So they did and thus was born the Madden Cruiser.
You really should watch that show if possible. Lots of info in it.