I bet others who grew up with Madden NFL, their CD-ROMs long in the heaven games go to when you sell them to GameStop, would tell you the same thing. It's the feeling of when the sum of it all-the X's and O's turning into names like Brady and Branch, turning into a touchdown as thousands cheer-makes you so damn excited that you pump your fist. Madden gifted everyone who played his game a version of what he must've felt on the gridiron. Where they were supposed to run when the quarterback screamed, "Hut!" But when I thought back to my time with Madden growing up, from the way he chattered over the hundreds of made-up games I played, to his beaming grin whenever I'd boot up Madden, I also realized that, and this is no exaggeration, he taught me what it meant to love sports.
![tiny player madden tiny player madden](https://imagesvc.meredithcorp.io/v3/mm/image?url=https:%2F%2Fstatic.onecms.io%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F6%2F2014%2F09%2Fmadden-nfl-15.jpg)
John Madden taught me how football worked. After Madden's death, I watched the SportsCenter memorial montages, read his obituaries, and found myself marveling at how, through playing Madde n NFL growing up, John Madden managed to actually be football for me, more than anyone in a helmet and pads.
#Tiny player madden full
Listen to 30 for 30's brilliant podcast on the birth of Madden NFL for the full origin story, but you know what happens next: A massively successful run of games under the name Madden NFL, releasing year after year, becomes one of the most storied gaming franchises of all time. One of Madden's greatest achievements, though, was trusting a fledgling video game developer, Electronic Arts, with the development of a football simulation with his name and face on it. The man was a successful player, coach, and commentator. On December 28, Madden passed away, leaving behind a legacy few, sports world or not, can ever rival. John Madden was teaching me about this mysterious thing my dad loved so much: football. Then, he passes the controller-a keyboard, back then-to me, and asks if I can try the play with the 11 animated blobs on my screen. He draws a play up on the board, jet-black squiggles and lines going every which way.
![tiny player madden tiny player madden](https://cdn.player.one/sites/player.one/files/2020/02/21/madden-20-update.jpg)
And now, trolling around on my dad's '90s-era copy of Madden NFL, there's this big guy in a fancy white shirt saying words like pass and punt and pylon and I can't remember what else. This is well before I started watching my hometown Pittsburgh Steelers every Sunday, when I'm just a sponge of a kid running around in circles at recess.