The Maddens are used to moving. Dave Madden, the father of Georgia’s 2015 signee Sam Madden, said he lived in 25 states growing up. He and his wife, Kathleen, have moved 17 times in the 26 years they’ve been married.
Make that 18. After Sam Madden signed with the Bulldogs in February, the entire family picked up stakes in Barnegat, N.J., and moved to Georgia. They now live in Braselton.
“It may sound cliche, and if it does I don’t care, but for me it’s family over everything,” said Madden, a 6-foot-6, 330-pound offensive lineman. “That’s just my whole thing. I tried to get my grandparents to move down here, too. Tried for months to do it. But they said no.”
It helps that Dave Madden has some flexibility when it comes to his job. He works as the director of construction for Kona Grill, a national restaurant chain based in Arizona. As such, he travels weekly to wherever the company is executing its latest build. In January he was in Puerto Rico. This month, he’s in Washington.
So he can work from anywhere there is a major airport, which Atlanta happens to have. Soon after signing day, the Maddens decided to come south with their son.
“We don’t want to miss out on anything,” Dave Madden said. “We want to be there to watch the games and participate and support him. We’re a family. We’ve always been there to support each other, and he’s our favorite son.”
Actually, Sam is the Maddens’ only son. He has two sisters, Naomi, 22, and Rachel, 20. Surprisingly, neither said they gave a second thought to uprooting and moving to Georgia. Naomi recently graduated from college while Rachel is taking courses online.
“I want to work in counseling with refugees,” said Naomi, who graduated summa cum laude from Stockton University in New Jersey earlier this year. “So there’s a lot of opportunity for me (in Georgia), too. And I definitely wanted to come support my brother.”
Since the beginning of May, the Maddens have resided in their rented home in a subdivision close to I-85 near Chateau Elan. Each week, one of them will drive Dave to the MARTA station in Doraville, where he’ll hop a train to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and fly off to the next project.
The house in Barnegat has yet to sale, but their decision to move en masse to Georgia seems to have been validated.
“We’re super-duper close knit,” mother Kathleen Madden said. “Our stability is in the Lord and in each other.”
