Post by TheShadow on Jul 30, 2006 10:42:32 GMT -5
www.sfgate.com
Ron Kroichick, Chronicle Staff Writer
Long before he slapped his name on video games, long before he offered his candid and entertaining analysis from the broadcast booth, John Madden was a wildly successful football coach.
Madden, 70, will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Aug. 5 because he guided the Raiders on a prosperous, decade-long journey. He served as Oakland's head coach from 1969-78, a 10-year stretch during which the Raiders never had a losing season, reached the playoffs eight times and won one Super Bowl.
Those seasons did not always end on an upbeat note: Madden's teams lost in the AFL or AFC Championship Game six times. But the Raiders had a regular-season record of 103-32-7 under Madden, a .759 winning percentage that still ranks as the highest ever among coaches with at least 100 victories.
Video clips from those long-ago days often show Madden animatedly raging along the sideline, an enduring image that tells only part of his story. As Madden's coronation in Canton, Ohio, draws near, The Chronicle contacted several former Raiders to collect their memories of playing for Madden.
What emerged was the portrait of a passionate, demonstrative, straightforward coach who clearly connected with his players.
Phil Villapiano (linebacker, 1971-79): "John Madden was the f -- ing best, man. If you want to play in the NFL, you want to play for John. Everyone else was Little League. He loved outrageousness and he appreciated it when you worked your ass off. It was the job you always wanted, because you just had to do the job. No BS. No politics. No backstabbing. That's why I loved playing for him. He just let me play football. I always felt like I could play forever with the Raiders, as long as I played well."
Ken Stabler (quarterback, 1970-79): "I've always said John's strong suit as a coach was how he handled players. He knew football, of course, but we had such a group of free spirits, with different egos and different lifestyles. He acknowledged the fact it was a diverse group. ... I always remember John's two rules: Be on time and play hard. There were no dress codes, no haircut rules. Because he treated us that way, nobody abused it."
Raymond Chester (tight end, 1970-72 and 1978-81): "I feel like I had a very special relationship with John, both professionally and personally. The trick is, most players on our team felt like they had a special relationship with him. That's a bit of magic, when every player feels like they have the connection."
Fred Biletnikoff (wide receiver, 1965-78): "He was really aware of each one of us -- our personalities, what got us motivated, our temperaments, our egos. He was unique, because a lot of head coaches don't go to that point. He created an easy atmosphere to play in."
Willie Brown (cornerback, 1967-78): "When you have a good team, as we did, a good coach gives the players a little freedom. John liked for us to be in before curfew, but he also knew certain players would probably be out after curfew. He didn't want to know about it; he'd say, 'Just don't tell me.' He wasn't as concerned as much as the players thought he would be concerned."
Lester Hayes (cornerback, 1977-86): "There are men who can speak to you on Sunday mornings and your pulse rate rises. That's a very unique gift coach Madden had. The pregame speeches were so powerful I thought I could run through a brick wall. ... He would speak about war, and it would sound so good I thought I was listening to the second coming of General George S. Patton. It was like that every week. Coach Madden could speak to us in such a positive fashion, we thought we could not be beaten."
Villapiano: "John always found something to hate. I loved it when he hated the other team's coach. He would get us fired up in his pregame speech, like he took it personally, and then we'd go out and kick their ass. One of the worst things for me was when I started going to the Pro Bowl and I found out I kind of liked these guys (on other teams). Madden had me hating all these players, and they were actually pretty nice guys."
Cliff Branch (wide receiver, 1972-85): "John would say some of the funniest things. I remember one time in Kansas City, they had a horse called War Paint who would run around the field every time the Chiefs scored a touchdown. We went there and they beat us something like 42-10. We came back Monday to watch film, and John came storming through the door and said, 'Damn, we tried to kill that horse!' "
Dave Casper (tight end, 1974-80): "John probably spoke less to the team than most head coaches I've had. He really only talked to us (as a team) twice a week. He limited his presentations to important things, so he had a great ability to focus people on what was important. ... The coach has two customers, the players and the fans. Some coaches get it backward and try to entertain the players and coach the fans. John got it right -- he coached the players and entertained the fans."
Jim Otto (center, 1960-74): "John was very intense. He got up in front of us and told us where we were going and what we were doing. He also inspired us to the point where we knew how to win, and we should just get out there and do it. John came on as a very young coach -- he was only a year and a half older than I was -- but he was a leader and he was taking us places."
Art Shell (offensive tackle, 1968-82): "We were getting ready to play Denver one week, and anybody knows if you walk around in Denver, you feel it (given the altitude). So John was jumping on us about, 'You guys gotta take care of yourselves, I expect you to be in much better shape than you have been.' ... So we talked about getting in shape and all of a sudden during the game John starts hyperventilating. He got excited about something and the next thing you know, the players come off the field and who's on the oxygen tank? It's big John. We gave him a hard time. 'You talk about us being in shape, look at you. We can't even get to the oxygen tank because of you.' "
Brown: "One game against Pittsburgh, we were behind at halftime and John was trying to find a way to motivate us. He came into the locker room, and there was this big old trash barrel in the middle of the room. He slammed his hand on it and his watch broke into pieces. He just picked up his watch and kept walking. He went into the training room, because he had hurt his hand."
Stabler: "He was so young, he was almost like one of the guys. It was like playing for your big brother. I think his age helped a lot -- that and the fact he had so much confidence in us. He let us be the people we wanted to be off the field, and he let us be the players we wanted to be on the field."
Jim Plunkett (quarterback, 1978-86): "John's a much more serious guy than he comes across. He was a yeller and screamer during practices and games, and that's the image everybody has of him. But he's very articulate, very smart, and he's very serious a lot of the time."
Villapiano: "John's greatest attribute was as a psychologist. He knew exactly what to tell you. I'll never forget when they brought in Ted Hendricks from Green Bay. Back then, the compensation for a free agent was usually another player. I read in the paper that morning that I was going to Green Bay as compensation for Ted. I was really depressed. I get to practice and John puts his arm around me and says, 'I read the story this morning, and I just want you to know, Don't worry about it.' It made me feel like a million bucks. I don't know if every head coach would have done that."
Jack Tatum (safety, 1971-79): "I remember when I had knee surgery and rehabbed over the offseason. About the second day of training camp, I twisted my knee again. John told me to come out early in the morning, do my rehab and lift weights, and then disappear (before practice). He realized my knee wasn't ready for my style of play. So for the next four or five weeks, I'd lift and everything and then I'd disappear. I think he let me play a quarter in the last exhibition game, and then I started in the regular season opener. Everything worked out, and I appreciated John giving me the time to recover."
Mark van Eeghen (running back, 1974-81): "We didn't like the Broncos, and we lost to them in the AFC title game after the '77 season and again in the '78 opener. We were watching film the next day in Alameda, and those were the days of reel-to-reel film, click-click-click. I completely screwed up this one play, totally missed my block, and it led to a fumble. John must have clicked 12 times showing that play. Then he takes the reel off the projector, throws it across the room and shouts, 'Get on the (bleeping) field and practice!' He was very angry. On the field, John took me aside and thanked me for playing one of my better games. Then he said, 'That one play sucked. I took advantage of it to motivate the team.' He told me why he did it, and he knew I wouldn't hold a grudge. He went out of his way to square things with me. That spoke volumes."
Hayes: "In 1977, I was almost in tears begging Coach Madden to allow me to play strong safety. I said, 'Please, I cannot play cornerback.' And he stood there besides the bench biting on a towel, laughing. Coach tells me, 'Son, your 40-yard dash time is 4.38, you can play bump-and-run.' There are men who tell you that you can do something and you believe it. I believed it because it was Coach Madden who told me I could play cornerback. He planted the positive seed."
Casper: "One time we had a guy on the practice field who was not going to make the team, this guy was acting like a real jerk. I remember thinking it might be cool to cut him right in front of the team, because he was such a jerk. I told John, 'You should cut the guy right here.' He said, 'Everybody deserves some respect and dignity.' Even though there might have been the urge (for the player) to pay in public, John wanted to do it in a way that was not belittling. That kind of taught me something."
Brown: "A couple of times, he would chew a player out and then he'd wink at me and say, 'How'd I do?' He was just trying to get guys motivated."
Villapiano: "I remember one game against New England in 1978, I had a (bad) game. John looked at me square in the eye the next day and said, 'You lost it.' He knew. I hadn't played that bad since Pop Warner. I'll never forget him saying that to me. He knew when a player (messed) up and he confronted you. He knew every position better than the players themselves."
Chester: "John was brilliant as a field general. We rarely, if ever, made a mental or technical mistake under John Madden. We didn't lose track of field position and we didn't lose track of timeouts. He was a guy totally into the game and totally in control of what was happening."
Casper: "I don't think John's skill was outmaneuvering the other team. It was getting his team to do what we did very well. His strategy was not to confuse his own team and make sure our players did their jobs. We didn't have a complex system. But we made very few fundamental mistakes. That was his style -- don't make mistakes, play hard and don't give in. We did the right things at critical times."
Stabler: "He knew all phases of the game: offense, defense, special teams. He understood all the Xs and Os and he understood matchups -- how to get Cliff Branch's speed on people, how to get (Raymond) Chester and Casper in the middle of the field. ... I learned a hell of a lot from John. He was just a guy you wanted to win for."
Otto: "It just seemed if we were having problems in the first half, we came out of the locker room in the second half and knew exactly what we were doing. That's why we won so many times late in the game. We had the confidence we could go out in the second half, with what the coaches told us at halftime, and beat anybody. We'd play five or six quarters if we had to, but we were going to win."
Plunkett: "When I first came to the Raiders, we always had Wednesday night quarterback meetings, me and David Humm and Kenny Stabler. It was supposed to last from seven (o'clock) to nine or whatever, and it invariably lasted 35 to 40 minutes. We'd watch some film, John would talk about the game, talk about a few things, and then he'd get up and say, 'Ah, screw it. Just block, tackle, catch the ball, win. Now go home.' "
Otto: "When John retired from the game, I talked to him a little about what he was going to do. He mentioned he hoped to do a little announcing, a little of this, a little of that. The first game he announced, I remember hearing him and thinking, 'He's not going anyplace else.' "
Biletnikoff: "He's very deserving of going into the Hall of Fame. We were always contenders, every year, and that was largely because of him. I'm very proud I played for him for so many years. He had great passion for the Raiders, and he did a hell of a job to get us motivated. It was just fun playing for him. He handled crises that came up; a lot of times he bit his tongue and waited for us to cool down."
Hayes: "When coach Madden led the Raiders, the Raiders always won. That legacy was a beautiful thing. The players knew there was a 99.9 chance of us being victorious, and it was a great feeling."