Today is New Year's Eve, the last day of a trying year in the civic life of this country. It's also a Friday, the day of the week when I reprise quotations intended to be uplifting or educational. Today's words of solace come from John Madden, a football lifer who passed away this week at age 85.
Even if you're not a football fan, Madden's observations about America were timely -- and timeless.
John Madden grew up in Daly City, Calif., playing high schools sports. He hurt one knee while at the University of Oregon, and finished his college athletic career at Cal Poly, where he starred in football and baseball. An injury to his second knee while in training camp with the Philadelphia Eagles ended his dreams of playing professionally, but he went into coaching and in 1969 became the youngest NFL head coach at the time with the Oakland Raiders.
He won a Super Bowl and retired after 10 seasons, seamlessly entering the broadcast booth where he became a cultural cross-over phenomenon. Madden could explain the game with equal ease to football junkies and novices, and had a soft spot for the game's pluggers -- tough guys who compensated for a lack of natural athleticism with grit and tenacity. This led to his annual "All-Madden Team" acknowledging such players.
Even before the development of the eponymous video game that made his name a household word among a generation of fans too young to have seen him coach, John Madden became a beloved national icon. He was a fitting everyman: overweight, passionate about people and sports, and vulnerable. His specific vulnerability was claustrophobia that manifested itself as a fear of flying. So he traveled coast-to-coast in a plush motorhome dubbed the Madden Cruiser, which put him smack in the middle of America's heartland instead of on private jets or in the first-class lounges of airports. As Christopher Jacobs of The Federalist noted it in an appreciation earlier this week, along the way Madden learned about local customs such as the Turducken, the Cajun creation of turkey, duck, and chicken, and popularized it for national audiences. Jacobs also unearthed an old Sports Illustrated profile of Madden, whose observations are still relevant -- and essential for elites to hear and heed. Here is what Madden told sportswriter Peter King:
"What I've learned traveling around is this: People are nice. You go to a big city, and you hear the world is going to hell, but it's not true. Small parts of it are; the whole isn't. Hey, all we have to do is spread out a little bit, because we have a lot of space. You get out there, and it makes you feel better about America. The thing works."
And that's our quote of the week. Happy New Year!
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon.
