John Madden’s lifelong buddy John Robinson: ‘Just two doofuses from Daly City’

They became football legends, although not the way they once planned. “Just two doofuses from Daly City,” said Robinson, 86, the former USC and Rams coach wistfully repeating a phrase the two pals used often over the course of their nearly 80-year friendship. “John slept and ate a lot.” — John Robinson, on lifelong friend John Madden when they lived together in school “They were hard to handle,” Robinson said. “And John handled them just as easy as you could a group of choir boys.” Though they would attend different high schools, Madden and Robinson maintained their friendship throughout their teenage years, working as caddies together at the Olympic Club and San Francisco Golf Club, driving around in beat-up cars supplied by Madden’s father, an auto mechanic, and talking endlessly about football. “We were sitting around drinking beer, and I came up with this thing that John Madden could beat Jim Bailey in a race,” Robinson said.