If someone remembers me as a coach, they still call me 'Coach,' but if they know me for the video game, they just call me 'Madden.'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It's been the video game ever since I got out of coaching. Even when I was an announcer, fewer and fewer people remembered me as 'Coach,' and as the years went on, people just started knowing me from the game.
I go out there with whatever the coaches call, and whatever they do, I just go out there, and I'm the player. Coaches coach, and players play.
My friends like to play as me in the baseball games, and they call to tell me about every bag I steal. And you know, every time a new game comes out, I check to make sure my speed is up to par. But to me, when you talk video games, you're talking 'Madden.'
At some point in time I will be honored if I would be mentioned as a coach.
In high school I was on the basketball team, but the coach did something I didn't dig and the next day he looked up and saw me practising with the football team.
I had played in a tournament with the captain of the University of Minnesota's golf team, and he thought I was good. He called his coach, and the coach called me and recruited me. A five-minute phone call changed my life.
If you win a Super Bowl before you're fired, you're a genius, and everyone listens to you. But a coach is just a guy whose best class in grammar school was recess and whose best class in high school was P.E. I never thought I was anything but a guy whose best class was P.E.
It's funny, as a little kid, you look up to those guys who you play as in 'Madden,' and now to see myself in the game, it's an honor.
There's so many kids who only know me from the video game. And they want to know if I'm home - and if I have a video game I can give them on Halloween. And sometimes they're surprised to learn there actually is a 'Madden.'
I'm a player, the coaches coach.