Czar of Telestrator retires

John Madden has officially retired from his broadcasting career to spend more time with his family. Funny how at 73 this realization finally came to him. Anyhow, Madden will best be known by me as the one broadcaster who will not travel by plane (only by a "tricked out" bus), as the Czar of the Telestrator, and as the Captain of the Obvious (he once circled Brett Favre's mouth piece, and highlighted how he would take it out to talk, and then put it back before the play).

For me and many others, he was very hard to listen to because of his incredibly obvious comments (I know some who used to completely turn down TV volume and turn on the radio broadcast) and his "man-crush" on Brett Favre.

Nevertheless sports talk radio hosts and ESPN have spoken very highly of him, even expressing sadness in his retirement and how the next guy, Chris Collinsworth, will have big shoes to fill. The only thing I can really chalk all this respect up to is his character; no one could really hate the guy. I guess it shows that in our culture today, character is nearly as important as skill in one's craft.