
Madden
A Biography
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Narrated by:
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Mark Moseley
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By:
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Bryan Burwell
About this listen
Several years after his playing career was cut short by injury before it had a chance to really begin, John Madden was hired as an assistant coach by the Oakland Raiders, one of professional football's most iconoclastic franchises. Two years later he was named the team's head coach and proceeded to lead the Raiders to five championship games in his first seven seasons. Following years of heartbreaking losses in some of history's most memorable games including the Immaculate Reception against the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1972 Madden and the Raiders finally reached the mountaintop, winning Super Bowl XI and giving Oakland its first title. One year later, Madden abruptly left the game he loved, retiring with the second-best winning percentage in NFL history. Had John Madden's football career ended there, his life would still be remarkable. The fact that it was only just beginning has made him an American icon and a beloved legend to millions of fans across the globe.
In Madden, longtime sports columnist Bryan Burwell has written the first comprehensive biography of this living legend. From his days as a star athlete in Daly City, California, Madden was driven to succeed, a trait that helped him persevere during his tumultuous years with the Raiders under Al Davis and compelled him to try his hand at broadcasting after his coaching career was over. Madden's incredible football knowledge, down-home sensibilities, and tireless work ethic made him arguably the most popular sports analyst in any sport and led to a long and storied career as a TV pitchman. In the third stage of his public life, the Hall of Fame coach became known to new generations of fans through his eponymous line of groundbreaking video games, which are among the best-selling titles of all time.
Madden is an entertaining, enlightening, and often poignant look back at the life of one of the greatest coaches, broadcasters, and beloved ambassadors the game has ever known.
©2011 Bryan Burwell (P)2012 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Story
At five feet ten inches tall, running back Walter Payton was not the largest player in the NFL, but he developed a larger-than-life reputation for his strength, speed, and grit. Nicknamed “Sweetness” during his college football days, he became the NFL’s all-time leader in rushing and all-purpose yards, capturing the hearts of fans in his adopted Chicago.
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Honest Accounting Of A Fascinating Life
- By RevInTampa on 08-19-15
By: Jeff Pearlman
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Parcells: A Football Life
- A Football Life
- By: Bill Parcells, Nunyo Demasio
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 26 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Bill Parcells may be the most iconic football coach of our time. During his decades-long tenure as an NFL coach, he turned failing franchises into contenders. He led the ailing New York Giants to two Super Bowl victories, turned the New England Patriots into an NFL powerhouse, reinvigorated the New York Jets, brought the Dallas Cowboys back to life, and was most recently enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
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Excellent football book
- By bluestar on 02-14-15
By: Bill Parcells, and others
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The League
- How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire
- By: John Eisenberg
- Narrated by: Daniel Thomas May
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The National Football League's current dominance has obscured how professional football got its start. In The League, John Eisenberg reveals that Art Rooney, George Halas, Tim Mara, George Preston Marshall, and Bert Bell took an immense risk by investing in the professional game. At that time, the sport barely registered on the national scene. The five owners succeeded only because at critical junctures in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, each sacrificed the short-term success of his team for the longer-term good of the League.
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what a great book. loved it completely.
- By Daniel Mosca on 11-08-18
By: John Eisenberg
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The Inside Game
- Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves
- By: Keith Law
- Narrated by: Rhett Samuel Price
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In this groundbreaking book, Keith Law, the ESPN baseball writer and author of the acclaimed Smart Baseball, offers an era-spanning dissection of some of the best and worst decisions in modern baseball, explaining what motivated them, what can be learned from them, and how their legacy has shaped the game....
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Narrator is negative value compared to replacement
- By Daniel W. Franzen on 11-28-20
By: Keith Law
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The Mannings
- The Fall and Rise of a Football Family
- By: Lars Anderson
- Narrated by: Ian Alan Carlsen
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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From New York Times best-selling author Lars Anderson comes a revealing portrait of the first family of American sports. What the Kennedys are to politics, the Mannings are to football. Two generations have produced three NFL superstars: Archie Manning, the Ole Miss hero-turned-New Orleans Saint; his son Peyton, widely considered one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play the game; and Peyton's younger brother, Eli, who won two Super Bowl rings of his own.
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The first family of football
- By Tyler Gordon on 09-08-18
By: Lars Anderson
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When the Game Was War
- The NBA's Greatest Season
- By: Rich Cohen
- Narrated by: Cary Hite
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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The 1980s were a transformative decade for the NBA. Since its founding in 1946, the league had evolved from a bruising, earthbound game of mostly nameless, underpaid players to one in which athletes became household names for their thrilling, physics-defying play. The 1987–88 season was the peak of that golden era, a year of incredible drama that featured a pantheon of superstars in their prime—the most future Hall of Famers competing at one time in any given season—battling for the title, and for their respective legacies.
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Phil Jackson accuses Red Auerbach of cheap tactics
- By Sean on 01-03-24
By: Rich Cohen
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The Legends Club
- Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, and an Epic College Basketball Rivalry
- By: John Feinstein
- Narrated by: John Feinstein
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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The riveting inside story of college basketball's fiercest rivalry among three coaching legends - University of North Carolina's Dean Smith, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, and North Carolina State's Jim Valvano - by the king of college basketball writers, number-one New York Times best seller John Feinstein.
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Must read for any college basketball fan,
- By Rick on 07-02-24
By: John Feinstein
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I'm Keith Hernandez
- A Memoir
- By: Keith Hernandez
- Narrated by: Keith Hernandez
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Keith Hernandez revolutionized the role of first baseman. During his illustrious career with the World Series-winning St. Louis Cardinals and New York Mets, he was a perennial fan favorite, earning eleven consecutive Gold Gloves, a National League co-MVP Award, and a batting title. But it was his unique blend of intelligence, humor, and talent - not to mention his unflappable leadership, playful antics, and competitive temperament - that transcended the sport and propelled him to a level of renown that few other athletes have achieved.
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True Colors Shine Through
- By BK on 10-06-21
By: Keith Hernandez
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The Football 100
- Sports Series, Book 1
- By: The Athletic, Dan Kaufman
- Narrated by: Jaime Lincoln Smith
- Length: 18 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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At The Athletic, home to the best newsroom in sports, this question would become a labor of love for dozens of the best football writers on the planet, including Mike Sando and Dan Pompei. Over the course of 100 riveting profiles—each drawing upon unparalleled access and superlative storytelling to offer intimate perspective on what made the greatest players tick—these writers reveal their findings. In the process, they also uncover the history of football.
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For every fan of the NFL
- By R. Young on 06-06-25
By: The Athletic, and others
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The Dynasty
- By: Jeff Benedict
- Narrated by: Todd Menesses
- Length: 25 hrs
- Unabridged
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How was the Patriots dynasty built? And how did it last for two decades? In The Dynasty, acclaimed journalist Jeff Benedict provides richly reported answers in a sweeping account based on exclusive interviews with more than 200 insiders - including team executives, coaches, players, players’ wives, team doctors, lawyers, and more - as well as never-before-seen recordings, documents, and electronic communications.
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I could not put this down!
- By Mark on 12-29-20
By: Jeff Benedict
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Gridiron Genius
- By: Michael Lombardi, Bill Belichick - foreword
- Narrated by: Michael Lombardi
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Former NFL general manager and three-time Super Bowl-winner Michael Lombardi reveals what makes football organizations tick at the championship level. From personnel to practice to game-day decisions that win titles, Lombardi shares what he learned working with coaching legends Bill Walsh of the 49ers, Al Davis of the Raiders, and Bill Belichick of the Patriots, among others, during his three decades in football.
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please please hire a reader for this amazing book
- By Christopher J. Burden on 10-10-18
By: Michael Lombardi, and others
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Showtime
- Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 18 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling sportswriter Jeff Pearlman draws from almost 300 interviews to take the first full measure of the Lakers’ epic Showtime era. A dazzling account of one of America’s greatest sports sagas, Showtime is packed with indelible characters, vicious rivalries, and jaw-dropping, behind-the-scenes stories of the players’ decadent Hollywood lifestyles. From the Showtime era’s remarkable rise to its tragic end - marked by Magic Johnson’s 1991 announcement that he had contracted HIV - Showtime is a gripping narrative of sports, celebrity, and 1980s-style excess.
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Offended at the style used to voice black characters.
- By NP on 01-15-22
By: Jeff Pearlman
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The Last Folk Hero
- The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
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From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat.
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If you are a sports fan and over 35 years old, you have to listen/read this. Awesome!
- By betty sammons on 06-29-23
By: Jeff Pearlman
That said... there is still a lot of really great stuff in there, that Madden and Raider fans really can't afford to pass this up. There's a little bit about him and John Robinson growing up together, there's some stuff about Madden and his college years as a student and football player, and then of course his years as a coach, and finally as a broadcaster. The broadcaster years are actually pretty in-depth and insightful and probably the highlight of the book.
I'm still hoping that someone will come out with a better biography of John Madden, but until they do, this book is worthy of a listen. I'm very glad that I got it.
Essential For Raider And Madden Fans
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Author
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Very enjoyable
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Truly amazing
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Football as a love of life god family football in that order.
The value of family
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Well written, a riveting account of a respected football legend, a must listen to!
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What a great Book!
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Great story and good narration
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Amazing book.
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John Madden, America’s real deal!
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