Bus Is His, but Madden Leaves Driving to Greyhound

There are 3,750 buses in the Greyhound Lines/Trailways fleet. But only one is famous.

That one, called the Maddencruiser, is the vehicle in which John Madden, one of the nation’s best-known football analysts and broadcasters, rides around the country from game to game.

Madden, a former coach of the Oakland Raiders, is no longer willing to fly because he suffers from claustrophobia while in flight and has not boarded a plane since 1979. For a few years Madden traveled by train but stopped because he did not want to be bound by a rigid schedule. On a bus, he says, he can stop when he wants to, he can alter his route and he can travel at his own pace.

“I love trains,” he said in a telephone interview the other day, “but they are becoming so popular you have to make reservations months in advance. I can’t do that. I often don’t know till a few days before what my schedule will be. I have complete control over a bus. I can go in 10 minutes.”

On the outside, the Maddencruiser--which Madden has used since mid-1987--looks the same as any other new Greyhound, except that it is six inches higher to provide extra headroom. But inside it is a mansion on wheels.

It has a kitchen, a queen-size bed on which Madden sleeps “very well,” an oversized tile shower, a full galley with microwave oven, a dinette, large chairs, telephone and intercommunications system, two color television sets, a citizens band radio, two laser disc players, a built-in vacuum cleaner, a stereo system and two videotape players. (Madden spends much of every week on the road watching the tapes of the previous weekend’s football games to prepare for the coming weekend’s broadcast on CBS television.)

The Maddencruiser was built to Madden’s specifications. “Boats and campers always have small toilets and showers,” said Madden, a large man. “I wanted a big shower and a very big bed.” But Madden doesn’t consider his home on wheels, which sleeps seven, all that posh. It’s more like an “efficiency apartment,” he said.

Last year, Madden traveled 55,000 miles in the Maddencruiser, driven by his primary driver for the year, Willie Yarbrough of Los Angeles. The bus also carries a relief driver to spell Yarbrough, who was chosen for the rotating job in a competition open to all Greyhound drivers with at least a decade of service. Competition for a new driver for the 1988 football season is under way, and the winner will be announced Aug. 3.

Yarbrough, who said he and Madden became close during the year they traveled together, had a seat in the broadcast booth when Madden was on the air.

Yarbrough is helping in the search for his successor and will break him in at the beginning of the football season. “I’m sad already,” Yarbrough said. “I’m going to be bored driving a regular bus run again.” He has worked for Greyhound for 22 years and normally drives a route between Sacramento and Los Angeles.

Though the cruiser’s refrigerator is well stocked, Madden stops several times a day to eat. And he is usually recognized. He says he likes to get off main highways and go into small towns to meet the people and “to buy a hat or a coffee mug.” He also carries a supply of Maddencruiser hats and shirts to hand out.

Madden’s celebrity status--he just won his fourth Sports Emmy for best commentator in five years--often causes a stir.

He once stopped in Sidney, Neb., to watch a Monday night football game. The Tastee-Freez shop where he stopped had its television set tuned to the game but was empty of customers. Not for long.

The shop owner began calling people, and soon a reporter and a photographer arrived. Then came the high school basketball team, still in uniform. Someone had called the coach, who canceled practice because of the famous visitor. The local football coach brought his wife, children, friends and neighbors. Before long, it seemed, the whole town was at the Tastee-Freez.

But Yarbrough remembers a time in Kingman, Ariz., when the famous coach-broadcaster was not recognized.

When he and Madden stopped at a restaurant there, a rumor began that a famous football player was among the patrons. An autograph hunter walked up to Madden and asked where the player had gone. Madden pointed to his driver who, dressed in his Greyhound uniform, was just leaving the restaurant. The autograph-seeker chased after Yarbrough, got his signature and went away satisfied. Madden and his driver had a good laugh.

Madden’s schedule keeps him away from home a great deal: He is on the road for the entire football season--from the August exhibition games until the Super Bowl at the end of January--and the only time he gets home is when the San Francisco 49ers play a TV game. The rest of the time, his base is the apartment he keeps in one of the swankiest buildings in New York, the Dakota.

But members of his family sometimes join him for short hops on the bus. His wife is a teacher and is not able to travel with him for any length of time. Besides, Madden said, she does not enjoy traveling on the bus, nor did she like to cross the United States by train. When she is able to be with him, she flies and meets him.

CBS people, including fellow broadcaster Pat Summerall, often ride with Madden from their hotel to the stadium. CBS President Laurence A. Tisch and his wife once rode from their Los Angeles hotel to Chasen’s restaurant. And Neal Pilson, president of CBS Sports, has been a guest on the drive from New York to Washington.

The nation’s best-known non-flier’s conversion from riding the rails to traveling by bus occurred quite by accident. Asked on a national television program about his aversion to flying, Madden said he was thinking about getting a bus.

George Gravley, Greyhound Lines’ public relations man, heard the comment and spotted an opportunity. Greyhound offered Madden a bus--which, with modifications, is worth about $500,000--at no charge. The only thing Madden must pay for are his food and telephone calls.

In return, Madden agreed to give motivational talks to Greyhound Lines’ employees in major cities he passes through during the football season. He is committed to make about 30 such talks. Once the three-year contract has expired, Madden will own the bus.

Gravley said, “He buys it on the installment plan but, instead of writing us checks, he pays us in personal appearances.”

Madden said people are attracted to the bus because everyone has fantasies of traveling cross-country in a camper. He writes extensively about the bus in his forthcoming book, “One Size Doesn’t Fit All (and Other Thoughts From the Road).” On the cover, Madden is shown holding a model of the bus.

“Wherever I am,” he writes, “most people don’t ask how my wife Virginia is. Or how our sons Mike and Joe are. Or how the Bears look. At least not right away. The first thing most people ask now is: ‘How’s the bus?’ Hey, it’s almost like the bus is a new member of the family.”