European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 6, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse Friday january 1989 the stars and stripes Page 25 commentary to now there s a football dude. The big 74. John Madden. Waving his arms. Rap Ping his jaw. My kind of football Guy. Look at that face. Big. Round. Creased. It has football punched All Over it. Whap my kind of foot Ball Guy. Look at that Mouth. Moving with the Speed of Jerry Rice. Spitting out emotion so you can drink the game. This Madden has chops that could Jar a goalpost. Bam my kind of football Guy. Did you hear him doing the color alongside Pat Summerall during last sunday s lbs telecast of the 49ers-Vikings game then again you Don t hear Madden As much As feel him. He was the one marvelling at the gashes and mud and blood of the football players. His was the booming voice celebrating the pfc title venue the pfc championship game should always be played in grass Field. Freezing . Yeah his kind of town Chicago is. Which is exactly where the 49ers and John Madden bears will play in the pfc final. And where Madden and Summerall will broadcast the game for lbs. When an carries the telecast at 10 . Sunday it la be your last Chance to hear big John this season since Abc is covering the super bowl. Think How hell Boom with Delight in Chicago. Soldier Field. None of that dome gloom for Madden. What do they think this is a Bridge tournament this is the National by god football league. Get the game outdoors. Get rid of that Rug. As the hottest analyst in the universe might say you Haven t played football until your uniform looks like you slept in it Bucky Fox through world War i. In my View says Madden football should never be played on artificial turf or worse in domed stadiums. Football should be played on god s turf grass in the hot Sun or in freezing cold whatever comes up that Day. The players should get their uni forms dirty even a Little bloody. They should sweat. Or they should be hopping around trying to Sta warm. That s that s John Madden. His views fit into his latest Book one size does t fit All As told to new York times columnist Dave Anderson. To hear Madden glorify Trench warfare on to you d think the Man hungers for the wickedest of whats. Certainly his Oakland Raider teams which won 103 games and a super bowl in his 10 years a their coach thrived with such players As Jack the Assassin Tatum. To read Madden is something else. In his Book he says in the nil everything starts with its quarterback. That s Why i think the rules should provide More Protection for a quarterback. But whenever i bring this up in a conversation with football people some Guy always says do you want to put a skirt Ona quarterback hey a quarterback does t have to prove to me that he s Macho. If he was t Tough he would t be a quarterback. Of All the players in a football game a quarterback is More defenceless than anybody else. When he s passing he s a sitting Duck for any Tacker who wants to take a shot. If punter in t allowed to be touched when one leg is in the air i Don t see Why a quarterback should t be protected when he s in the act of passing. He would t be bounced around like a rag Madden jumps off his pages like a Guy you d want to eat mexican food with. Especially since that s his favorite. But Don t expect him to come Over Here Forit. The More i thought about it he says the Morei realized it did t make much sense for me to go All the Way to Europe on the qe2 to visit museums that did t want to visit. Hey it s not just museums with old paintings and old dinosaurs. It can be a museum with old football players. I went to George Blanda s induction into the pro football Hall of Fame in Canton Ohio in 1981, but after walking through one Wing of the Hall of Fame with All those Bronze busts that was enough for me. I just prefer live people and live things. Maybe that s Why i m so comfortable in new Madden might look like an old lineman. Address like one when you see me doing a game in the lbs Booth i m wearing a Blue Blazer Over a tie and shirt but you Don t see my old Khaki pants yet this is no football Dummy. He has a master degree. His sons Are Harvard and Brown men. You can hear Madden use whom correctly. The Man s a thinker. Think about it he Sasin his Book. If you put All of those people in All those buildings in Manhattan then tried to get on and off Manhattan Island every Day feeding them at lunchtime if you had to Start from scratch to do this it would never come put right. But somehow new York works. Every time i walk around the Westside it never ceases to amaze leave it to Madden to think of assigning numbers to me Ronald Reagan would be wearing 16, Bill Cosby 12, Elizabeth Taylor 32, Paul Newman 22,Katharine Hepburn 18 and Pope John Paul ii 73." and John Madden 74. The Guy with the shirt tucked out. And the fat hands. And the Messy up the sound. The stars and stripes one Maryland quarterback will reach the super bowl \71tf\ Catt t it Byvik Ostellino the Baltimore Sun when Boomer Esiason spoke on the phone to Frank Reich monday night there was one thought on their minds. Boomer did you believe one of us ingoing to the super bowl Reich asked Esiason. It s True. One of the two former University of Maryland quarterbacks will qualify for the super bowl sunday when the Cincinnati bengals play Host to the Buffalo Bills in the american football Confer ence title game. Esiason is Cincinnati s quarterback and Reich is the backup to Jim Kelly at Buffalo. Another former Maryland quarterback Stan Gelbaugh is the third string quarterback for Buffalo although he was on the inactive list last sunday. Esiason said tuesday during a Confer ence Call with writers from around the nation that the three quarterbacks use to talk about the super bowl when they were at Maryland. We d say would t it be great to Goto the super bowl it s the dream of every football player Esiason said. Esiason and Reich will have dinner saturday night at Esiason s Home before the game although they agreed not Socall each other any More this week. Esiason also wants Kelly to come for dinner but the Buffalo quarterback might pass because he had dinner at Esiason Shouse the night before the team s 35-21 loss to the bengals earlier this year. The super bowl is a dream for Esia son but there would be one Downside for him. A super bowl Victory would Meanie do i n be difficult for me to come might retire if i get to the top Esiason said. He s not really going to retire of pro bowl quarterback Boomer Esiason is one win away from the super bowl. Course but Esiason has spent his whole career proving something. Esiason said he was t heavily recruited out of High school and received Mary land s last scholarship. He was then by passed until the second round of the National football league draft. Cincinnati took three other players be fore grabbing him. Atlanta also passed him by three times. Although he s now making $1.2 Mil lion a year he still has t reached the status of John Elway or Dan Marino. " there Are those Kingpins and they should be. They re very talented there Are those players like myself Warren Moon maybe Jim Everett whore trying to achieve that status. I Don t know if i want that status. I want that mental Frame of mind of trying to prove something he said. It still upsets him that he was bypassed in the first round of the draft. He said that one of the problems was that Maryland had a banquet the night before the Combine scouting meeting inner Orleans in 1984. He had to Fly out of Baltimore at 5 . To get to new Orleans and he said the nil did t set up a meal until 5 ., after they had gone through a Day of physical examinations. I remember feeling that the player were being treated unfairly. I got on an elevator and i was saying How disgusted i was and probably used a few words you could t print about the whole Organiza Tion of the nil and How they were treat ing us. There was a Guy standing in Back of the elevator who happened to be Dan Henning Esiason said. Henning now a Washington assistant coach was then the Atlanta head coach. I Don t know if that had anything to do with it Esiason said. They probably thought i was a head Case. They probably still Henning was not available for com ment tuesday. Esiason got a reputation for being a Brash outspoken Type mainly because he i Brash and outspoken. The bengals even have a clause in his contract stating tha Esiason can t write a Book about his experiences in the nil or have a television show. Esiason also said it did t help that hews suffering from a separated shoulder at the Combine meeting. But he was so unimpressed with the other quarterbacks i thought i could throw that Well with my right that he picked up a Ball and started throwing and he did t look very impressive. The result was that when he got to Cincinnati he Felt he had something to prove. Not that he proved it right year the fans were on him because of the team s 4-11 record and his outspoken comments during the strike. I think there was a time last year no question that i wanted out of Here he said. It was very difficult for my family to sit at Home now that s All behind him. Even his once Stormy relationship with coach Sam Wyche has improved
