John Madden Memories: Cowboys QB Troy Aikman's 'Treasure' - and Mine, Too

"I used to mention to my father something along the lines of, "I hope I can meet John Madden one day."

John Madden has always been synonymous with professional football.

As a child in the early 2000's, I was obsessed with the sport that he covered, and I still am to this day. I vividly remember the intro to ABC's "Monday Night Football'' with Hank Williams Jr. belting, "Are you ready for some football?" followed by the crisp voices of Al Michaels and John Madden on the telecast. My father and I would take in these games in a weekly tradition, and Madden became associated with these cherished moments very quickly.

Troy Aikman, who knew Madden personally, called the just-deceased icon, at 85, "a treasure, a gift.'' But he was that to generations of strangers, too.

Including me.

Without John Madden in my childhood, football would not be the same. And my childhood wouldn't have been the same, either.

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I grew up in rural North Mississippi in a town of about 1,000 residents. Even in the offseason - the hot, sweltering summers of the Magnolia State--my mind was on one thing: football. 

It was one of these days that I mentioned to my father something along the lines of, "I hope I can meet John Madden one day." Madden was my hero. He was a part of a tradition that I had formed with my dad, and that was watching the NFL. Football was important to my dad, so it was important to me, and I tried to soak in every ounce of the game I could.

That involved a lot of John Madden.

We were sitting in a parking lot in our hometown of Vardaman, Mississippi, and my dad, not missing a beat, replied, "Maybe you can. Maybe he'll stop by Vardaman sometime."

Of course, the thought that John Madden would pass through a town that is barely a blip on the map is ludicrous, but to me, it kept hope alive that some day I could meet this man who seemed larger than life.

I quickly became a partaker of not just Madden's broadcast content, but also his video game franchise. Since the 2005 edition, I haven't missed a year of the game, and although it's changed with technology over the years, that also played a part in Madden being on a pedestal in my young life.

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John Madden was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006, and his life had arguably one of the largest impacts on the game in NFL history.

"He was football,'' NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said upon Madden's passing on Tuesday.

Although Madden only coached in the NFL for 10 seasons, spanning 1969 to 1978 with the Oakland Raiders, he led his team to a championship in Super Bowl XI. If his football life had stopped there, it still would have been a storied career.

Fortunately, however, it didn't.

Madden broke into NFL broadcasting beginning in 1979, a career he kept until his retirement in 2008. This is the John Madden I'm old enough to remember, but his influence on the game covered all the bases: from playing, to coaching, to broadcasting, to video games. That may never happen again.

In all honesty, I owe a lot of my career path to John Madden. I now write for Sports Illustrated, one of the premier media companies in the world, covering the same sport he covered and coached. As a child, I would often mute the television when I was playing some installment of Madden's video game franchise and commentate the games myself. Even though I now cover sports through the written word instead of via broadcast, I've always been in love with sports analysis, and Madden was a key component of that.

When I heard about his passing on Tuesday, the first thing I did was call my dad.

"One of the most vivid memories I have from my childhood is you telling me that maybe Madden would pass through town," I said. "That always stuck with me."

"Hey, it's theoretically possible," my dad said, still holding the position he held 20 years ago. "He could have been going from Nashville to New Orleans and stopped on his way."

In case you were curious, John Madden never came through the little hamlet of Vardaman, Mississippi, in person, but his impact in the world of professional football stretched even there in its worldwide reach.

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Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said on Tuesday, "There is no one who lived a more beautiful football life than John Madden.''

For me, that definitely rings true.

The impact that Madden had on my career and life is likely minuscule compared to others in the world of football, but it was huge to me, and even I, a sportswriter from Mississippi, owe a lot to his impact in professional sports.

For that, I am grateful.