Screenwriting Quote of the Day #30 (John Madden)

Though Iowa’s own Kurt Warner and the Arizona Cardinals came up a little short yesterday was another case of the Super Bowl being super. Congrats to the Pittsburgh Steelers—champions once again.  And that game winning ballet catch in the closing seconds of the game by Santonio Holmes brought memories for me of Lyn Swann. 

The game being played in Tampa this year also brought back memories to 2001 when I was hired to go during Super Bowl week there and videotape pro football hall-of fame great Reggie White for a promotional video. For some reason what I remember most about that shoot was it was the first time I had seen a stretch Hummer limo. What kind of gas milage do you think they get?

And there was one more experience that popped into my mind while watching the game and listening to John Madden. I once had a shoot in San Luis Obispo, California with Madden and dozens of pro football players for a celebrity golf tournament.  Madden has a Midwest connection in that he was born in Austin, Minnesota which is just over the border from northern Iowa (and where the Spam museum is located).

He played college ball in San Luis Obispo and when his pro career was cut short by an injury he turned to coaching eventually becoming the youngest head coach in the NFL at age 32. He won a Super Bowl a few years later and in 1979 turned to broadcasting where he has won 14 Emmy Awards. And he was an early part of the video gaming industry with his part with EA Sports John Madden Football. 

Quite a career, right? Because opportunities are growing in the gaming industry for screenwriters (and the gaming industry is now bigger than the film industry) I thought you’d be interested in knowing how Madden followed his passion into video games.

I started the videogame before there were videogames. When we first started, we were going to make a computer game. When I got out of coaching, I had taught a class at the University of California, an extension class on football for fans. I was looking for tools. I was showing them films. I was going to write a textbook. Trip Hawkins came to me about making it a game for computers. I said there has to be 11 guys on a team. I figured it would be a good teaching tool, a good coaching tool. I didn’t know anything about computers then, where they were going. No one did. Anyway, we started and worked on this game for a few years. It came out in a computer version. Then, boom, lo and behold, here comes the hardware for videogames and we already have the software. There we go. To say when I started I knew it was going to happen, I didn’t know. But no one else knew. It was just something that we happened to be there first. We stumbled upon it. We’re still going. It just gets bigger and bigger.
                                                     John Madden
                                                     Interview with Jon Robinson 

 

Scott W. Smith