He wrote his own obituary<\/a>, knowing that he was sick,\u201d Dyer said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t about any accomplishments or anything that he had done, although he could\u2019ve taken up a couple pages if he really wanted to enumerate all the things that he had done. It wasn\u2019t about him, it was about his family and his friends.<\/p>\nArticle continues below this ad<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was just that humble.\u201d<\/p>\n
Born Aug. 26, 1955 in New Hartford, Madden was a three-sport athlete at New Hartford High School, playing football, basketball and baseball. After graduating from New Hartford, he enrolled at Siena and helped usher in the school\u2019s Division I era of men\u2019s basketball.<\/p>\n
Initially named a co-captain alongside Holle for the 1976-77 season by Siena coach Bill Kirsch, Madden ended up taking on the responsibilities on his own when Holle departed to start a pro baseball career after being drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers.<\/p>\n
Madden, who averaged 8.9 points and 5.9 rebounds per game during that first Division I season in which Siena went 9-15, was the ideal player to lead his teammates on and off the floor, Dyer said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe was the perfect person to be the captain of that team,\u201d said Dyer, who started at small forward with Madden next to him at power forward. \u201cHe was stern. He had conviction. He made decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holle said those qualities were evident in Madden\u00a0\u2014 a 1977 Siena graduate\u00a0\u2014 even before he was officially a captain.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there were any kind of issues, he could usually calm those things down, get everybody back on track,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
After graduating from Siena, Madden and Dyer worked together at the state Department of Health before Madden embarked on a new path in business. He joined Callanan Industries, eventually becoming company president. When Oldcastle Materials Group purchased Callanan, Madden became president of Oldcastle\u2019s Northeast Division.<\/p>\n
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Through it all, he remained steadfastly dedicated to a wide circle of friends.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have all used the phrase from time to time, \u2018larger than life,\u2019 (and) Chris Madden truly was the epitome of that phrase,\u201d said Dave Smith, Siena\u2019s former vice president for development and external affairs. \u201cIn every aspect of his life he excelled and was a beacon of light for us all. His love of family, his business relationships and dealings, his friendships, his faith, his philanthropic leadership.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cChris was a \u2018count me in\u2019 person. Always available to be counted on, always ready to assist, and he always did it with anonymity and dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the years after his retirement, Dyer said that Madden \u201cfilled his life with all the things he wanted to do with his family and friends,\u201d including deep sea fishing, skiing, riding catamarans in the Caribbean and golfing all over the world.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe loved to have fun,\u201d Dyer said. \u201cHe realized when he retired that we don\u2019t have a whole (long) amount of time, and we don\u2019t know when we\u2019re going to reach the top of the mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Madden is survived by his wife of 41 years, Carleen, as well as daughters Katharine, Elizabeth and Sarah, and four siblings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His funeral will be held Friday on the Siena campus, starting at the Grotto at 10 a.m. and following with a procession to the Maloney Great Room in the Sarazen Student Union. A celebration of life will be held at Schuyler Meadows Club, where Dyer said that Madden became \u201cthe lightning rod of activity and fun at the club.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe was tough. He was kind. He had a soft heart,\u201d Dyer said. \u201cHe was special. Everybody loved him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Siena basketball players Chris Madden, left, and Frank Dyer pose for a photo at the Teresian House…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[292531,64,63,726,99,724,359032,292530,322,85],"class_list":["post-746656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-alco","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-business","tag-college-basketball","tag-college-siena","tag-latestnews","tag-local","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}