Happy New Year to all!

In the "you learn something new every day" category, a family member texted me on New Year's Day and said they heard that John Madden had once played football at Oregon!?!

I, of course, never having heard or read that ever in Madden's long playing and broadcasting career, even from the Oregon media, didn't believe it.

Yet here it is from Wikipedia...

"A football star in high school, Madden played one season at the College of San Mateo, in 1954, before he was given a football scholarship to the University of Oregon,studying pre-law, and playing football with boyhood friend John Robinson. He was redshirted because of a knee injury and had a knee operation. Then he attended the College of San Mateo in 1955, then Grays Harbor College playing in the fall of 1956, before transferring to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, where he played both offense and defense for the Mustangs in 1957 while earning a Bachelor of Science in education in 1959 and a Master of Arts in education in 1961.He won all-conference honors at offensive tackle, and was a catcher on Cal Poly's baseball team."

Kind of surreal thinking of Madden walking around the UO campus as a student back in the day!