Madden, it’s fair to say, is a Bobcat superfan. Along with amassing his memorabilia collection and contributing his time and money to TXST, the 68-year-old owns season tickets for every Bobcat team that offers them—eight for football, and two each for women’s basketball, men’s basketball, baseball, softball, and volleyball.
And Madden makes sure those seats are filled. He attends every game possible, zipping down to San Marcos via State Highway 130. When his long days in the cattle business or family time with his eight grandchildren conflict with games, he makes sure somebody is able to enjoy the seats, whether friends, military veterans, or members of a youth group.
“What I most appreciate is that Tom is always present—even when he is not present,” says Zenarae Antoine, the 15-year head coach of the Bobcat women’s basketball team. “What I mean is he’s always aware of the happenings of our program, even when he can’t physically be there. He celebrates the victories and picks you up when you’re down. But more importantly, he reminds all of us that the athletes are Texas State students, and when they achieve off the court or are active in the San Marcos community, he celebrates those wins as well.”
Madden grew up in Dallas, the third of eight children. His father, also named Tom, was a chemical salesman, and his mom, Janet, was a registered nurse. They made a decent living, but with 10 mouths to feed, discretionary income was minimal. When the children were old enough, they went to work to earn spending money. Tom delivered newspapers for the Dallas Morning News, which meant waking up at 4 a.m.
There was, however, money for summer vacations, and the Madden family’s tradition was to visit Canyon Lake, about 20 miles west of San Marcos, near where Tom Sr. had participated in Army flight training. The family would cram into one tent—“like a bunch of puppies,” Tom says—and spend their days swimming and laughing. Tom fell in love with the Hill Country, so in 1975 when it was time to choose a college, the obvious choice was that picturesque campus on a hill.
For $135 tuition per semester (Madden still has his original degree plan paperwork), Madden worked his way through school. He graduated debt free, in part from working 30 to 40 hours a week at Grins Restaurant, a longtime local favorite.
For a few months after graduation, Madden goofed around San Marcos. “Then I started seeing all my friends leave because they got their degrees and they moved on with life,” he recalls. “I go, ‘OK, big boy, time to grow up. You know, you didn’t go to school to flip hamburgers the rest of your life.’”
Then hard work met opportunity. The oil boom of the 1980s meant petroleum companies were looking for hands. If you had a science degree, like Madden did in biology, it meant they wanted you as a field engineer instead of a roughneck. Plus, it had come up in the job interview that he liked working on his car. “They liked I could also work with my hands,” he says.
For eight years, Madden was a “mud logger,” flying on helicopters to drilling rigs far out into the Gulf of Mexico to sit behind a computer, guiding the drillers by monitoring the natural gas levels and evaluating the physical characteristics of rocks as they were removed.
Then fate smiled on Madden again. Out dancing in Austin, he locked eyes with a young woman. He asked her to dance. “We both say that it was love at first sight,” Sherri Schwertner Madden recalls. “I was immediately drawn to Tom’s smile, and I could tell immediately that he was a very genuine person. He makes friends and has them for life.”
“I drive Sherri crazy when I say this, but it was kind of like the musical South Pacific and the song, ‘Some Enchanted Evening’” Madden laughs.
A year later, in April 1984, Tom and Sherri wed, and not long after, Madden joined Sherri’s family’s business, Capitol Land & Livestock, a cattle dealer. He’s managed the company for 39 years. Along the way, the Maddens raised their two children, Hunter and Nicole, both of whom graduated from Texas A&M University.
As his bottom line improved, Madden started thinking about giving back. “I owe my success to the university," he says. "As I got older, I've been able to pay back to the university through helping.”
