Dec. 28 (UPI) — Pro Football Hall of Fame coach and longtime broadcaster John Madden died Tuesday morning, the NFL announced. He was 85 years old.
The league’s statement said that Madden, who coached the Oakland Raiders to the Super Bowl, died unexpectedly Tuesday morning. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell remembered him as a “devoted husband father and grandfather” alongside his accomplishments in football.
“Nobody loved football more than Coach. He was football. He was an incredible sounding board to me and so many others,” Goodell said. “There will never be another John Madden, and we will forever be indebted to him for all he did to make football and the NFL what it is today.”
Madden was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006 following a successful NFL coaching career.
As the Raider’s head coach from 1969-78, Madden reached the playoffs 10 times with an overall record of 112-32-14 and guided the team to the Super Bowl in 1976.
He left coaching at the age of 42 and launched a career as a broadcaster that saw him call games for every major network including CBS, Fox, ABC and NBC from 1979-2008.
Madden was also the face of the Madden NFL video game series that was launched in 1988 as John Madden Football and has continued as a yearly franchise to this day.
