When John Madden began calling his local San Francisco radio station in 1997, it signaled the beginning of nearly 20 years of conversations between the football legend and morning show host Stan Bunger, as the host writes in “Mornings With Madden: My Radio Life with an American legend’ (Triumph Books, out Tuesday).
What made the discussion on KCBS even more remarkable was not only that Madden did it five days a week at 8:15 a.m., but that it came at a time when the Super Bowl-winning coach was in the prime of his career. its excellent transmission. and, thanks to the video game that bore his name, was making more money each year than any NFL player.
“You’d have to miss about 40 years of American culture not to know who John Madden was,” Bunger writes.
“John Madden was a damn big deal, but not too big to show up every day, ready to shine on local radio.”
Simply put, Madden is synonymous with football.
Not only was he the television face and voice of the nation’s most popular sport, broadcasting on CBS, Fox, NBC and ABC’s Monday Night Football from 1979 to 2009, his name also graced the most popular sports video game. sold, and he was the man who led the Oakland Raiders to a Super Bowl victory in 1977 and had the highest career winning percentage of any NFL coach.
‘Mornings With Madden’ grew out of the great sense of loss Stan Bunger felt when Madden died in December 2021, a loss also felt by friends, family, colleagues and millions of fans across the United States. “The sense of duty came from my belief that this story needed to be told,” Bunger adds, “and there’s really no one but me to tell it.”
However, Bunger is keen to stress that his book is not another ghost-written biography or memoir. “Here it is: the inside story of an underreported part of a remarkable man’s life,” he writes.
For Madden, their conversations were an opportunity to engage with his hometown radio station. “[They were] a chance to unwind, tell stories and impart his brand of wit and wisdom.”
But they were also a chance to keep in touch with his legions of fans back home.
“John marveled at the fact that he had three audiences and each called him by a different name,” adds Bunger. “People who knew him from his days with the Oakland Raiders called him ‘Coach.’ The millions who watched him on all those NFL telecasts called him ‘John.’
“And the mostly youth crowd playing the ‘Madden NFL’ video game called him ‘Madden’. He answered everybody.”
For Stan Bunger, however, they weren’t just radio gold, but a precious friendship developed on the airwaves, where both men did the world justice. “The truth is, we were just playing it one day at a time, having a long conversation,” Bunger writes. “Only occasionally did we realize the depth of the connection between John and KCBS listeners.”
They didn’t just discuss football.
From family life to roadside diners, philosophy to health, wealth and wisdom, the two men covered the full range of topics.
Inevitably, though, Madden turned to sports in general, such as his love/hate relationship with golf. “It’s great, except I can’t play,” he told Bunger. “I’m just terrible. And it comes to a point, if you’re terrible and you care, then that equals frustration.
“So the key is you have to not care.”
On the rare occasion he hit a good shot, he would say, “The blind squirrel finds an acorn.”
Food was his favorite subject. “Coach liked to eat, he liked to think about eating, he liked to talk about eating,” Bunger writes. Just don’t get him started on gravel. “I never got gravel,” he said. “Stones are like mash. Two things I didn’t like when I was a kid: I didn’t like liver and I didn’t like mash.
“And then I was an adult. I still don’t like liver and I still don’t like musk.”
Madden tackled each subject with typical enthusiasm, leaving behind an endless list of what Bunger calls “Maddenisms,” such as “Don’t let the hose out until you know where the fire is” or “Don’t worry about the horse.” . being blind, just load the wagon.”
Another of Bunger’s personal favorites was, “If you’re going to eat cherries in the garden, make sure they’re worth the stomach ache.”
As the author explains, it is typical of the way John Madden’s mind worked. “Taken literally, Coach is talking about what happens if you can’t wait to dig into a bag of freshly picked cherries, something he liked to do when he would take his grandchildren to his orchard,” he writes.
“But dig a little deeper and you have classic madness: a reminder that short-term gains sometimes bring long-term pain.”
In fact, there were so many memorable lines that Bunger regrets, albeit jokingly, that he never quite matched Madden’s lyrical flourishes. “I think if we’d been smart, we’d have created a ‘Crazy Quote of the Day’ calendar or sold t-shirts with some of his wisdom emblazoned on them,” he writes.
Madden was particularly vocal when it came to medical matters, invariably prefacing his answers with the words “I’m not a doctor, but . . .”
In one show, for example, Bunger mentioned he had a frog in his throat and wondered if the coach had any medicine. “Yes,” Madden replied. “What you do is put your hand under your mouth up to your elbow. Do not place it deeper than the elbow and then bend the knees and turn the toes out.
“And then put your head between your knees and let it all out. This will work.”
Even when Coach Madden took time off from calling, he made sure to get back as soon as he could. In 2015, for example, he underwent open-heart surgery and was visited in the hospital by Bunger’s friend Jim Ghielmetti, who asked how he was feeling, at which point Madden opened his coat to expose where the surgeons had opened it.
“How fk do you think I feel?” he replied.
However, by 2018, Madden’s declining health prevented him from calling, but KCBS always kept his slot open for him, giving him the new title of “Senior Investigative Correspondent At Large” in hopes that a day could return to the show.
But he never did.
John Madden died on December 28, 2021. He was 85 years old.
“In the same way that some people save voicemails after their loved ones die, I’ve kept the text message string with Coach,” Bunger writes. “I just looked back at the message I sent him two months before my planned retirement date, letting him know about my plans.”
“His response verbatim: ‘When you say you’re going to retire, you do.’
Fittingly, the foreword to “Mornings With Madden” was written by legendary quarterback Peyton Manning, who keeps a picture of himself with Coach Madden on the wall of his Denver, Colo., office.
“John became someone we all felt we knew. He had that special ability to just be himself in a world full of people who seem to be trying too hard,” he writes.
“I know from my relationship with John that he was wise, funny and loyal.
“He was the guy you wanted to hang out with every day.”
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