Max McGee, RIP

[GA Russell]

Max McGee died yesterday. I had his bubble gum card in 1959. In his autobiography Run to Daylight, Vince Lombardi said that he had never met anyone so preoccupied with money as McGee. I thought that was an odd comment for a coach to say about one of his players.

Here's an AP obit:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,303822,00.html

(A click on the link shows a photo. It looks like Lamar Hunt with McGee.)

Max McGee, Super Bowl I Hero, Dies After Falling From Roof

Sunday, October 21, 2007

AP

MINNEAPOLIS — Max McGee, the unexpected hero of the first Super Bowl and a long-time challenge for Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi, died Saturday after falling from the roof of his home, police confirmed. He was 75.

Police were called to the former Green Bay receiver's Deephaven home around 5:20 p.m., Sgt. Chris Whiteside said. Efforts to resuscitate McGee were unsuccessful.

McGee was blowing leaves off the roof when he fell, according to news reports. A phone message left at a number listed for an M. McGee wasn't immediately returned.

"I just lost my best friend," former teammate Paul Hornung told the St. Paul Pioneer Press. "(His wife) Denise was away from the house. She'd warned him not to get up there. He shouldn't have been up there. He knew better than that."

Inserted into Packers' lineup when Boyd Dowler was sidelined by a shoulder injury, McGee went on to catch the first touchdown pass in Super Bowl history in Green Bay's 35-10 victory over Kansas City in January 1967. Still hung over from a night on the town, McGee caught seven passes for 138 yards and two TDs.

"Now he'll be the answer to one of the great trivia questions: Who scored the first touchdown in Super Bowl history?" Hornung said. "Vince knew he could count on him. ... He was a great athlete. He could do anything with his hands."

Though an admirer of Lombardi, McGee time and again pushed the tough-as-nails coach to the breaking point.

McGee — remembered for saying: "When it's third-and-10, you can take the milk drinkers and I'll take the whiskey drinkers every time." — put Lombardi to the ultimate test prior to the first Super Bowl.

McGee had caught only four passes for 91 yards during the 1966 regular season and, not expecting to play against the Chiefs, violated the team's curfew and spent the night before the game partying.

Reportedly, the next morning he told Dowler: "I hope you don't get hurt. I'm not in very good shape."

Dowler went down with a separated shoulder on the Packers' second drive, and McGee had to borrow a helmet because he left his in the locker room. A few plays later, McGee made a one-handed reception of a pass from Bart Starr and ran 37 yards to score.

"He had a delightful sense of humor and had a knack for coming up with big plays when you least expected it to happen," Packers historian Lee Remmel said. "He had a great sense of timing."

Remmel said McGee once teased Lombardi when the coach showed the team a football on their first meeting and said, "Gentlemen, this is a football."

"McGee said, 'Not so fast, not so fast,'" Remmel said. "That gives you an index to the kind of humor that he served up regularly."

McGee was a running back at Tulane and the nation's top kick returner in 1953.

Selected by the Packers in the fifth round of the 1954 draft, McGee spent two years in the Air Force as a pilot following his rookie year before returning in 1957 to play 11 more seasons. He finished his career with 345 receptions for 6,346 yards — an 18.4-yard average — and scored 51 touchdowns and 306 points.

After retiring from football, he became a major partner in developing the popular Chi-Chi's chain of Mexican restaurants. In 1979, he became an announcer for the Packer Radio Network with Jim Irwin until retiring in 1998.

McGee and wife Denise founded the Max McGee National Research Center for Juvenile Diabetes at the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee in 1999.

According to the center's Web site, his brother fought diabetes in his lifetime, and Max and Denise's youngest son, Dallas, lives with the disease.

McGee is survived by his wife, four children and several grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements were pending.

[alocispepraluger102]

thanks for that.

as i recall, max is prominently mentioned in jerry kramer's book, 'instant replay.'

[paul secor]

I was never a Packers fan, but Max McGee was a good one and I respected him for that.

R.I.P.

But what was he doing up on a roof at 75? Guess he still though of himself as a tough guy.

Edited October 22, 2007 by paul secor

[jlhoots]

Starr to McGee was a good combination.

R.I.P.

[Hot Ptah]

Max was a play by play announcer for the Packers games on radio for many years. He was a witty, sarcastic announcer who never hesitated to point out what the Packers were doing wrong. He was very entertaining and had a loyal fan following for his announcing. Many fans would watch the games on TV but turn off the sound and play the radio in the background, to get Max's announcing of the game.

He was a starting wide receiver for the Packers for many years. They never emphasized the passing game much, but he was known as a clutch receiver. He was the Packers' punter for several seasons too.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

...He traveled to Los Angeles with his teammates as they prepared to battle the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl I. But no one, including McGee himself, thought he was going to play. Considering offers to work as a commentator, McGee decided he would retire from pro football after the Super Bowl.

Once in L.A., the Packers were put under a strict curfew, and anyone missing bed check would be fined $10,000. (This was a particularly steep fine, as each player would only receive about $15,000 if they won the game.)

An assistant coach stopped by McGee’s room for bed check the night before the big game. He found McGee tucked quietly under the covers and said, “Good thing you’re here. Lombardi told me to check you first. Don’t you sneak out, you sonofabitch.”

When the coach closed the door, McGee sprung from under the covers, fully dressed in a suit --coat, tie and all.

“I practically ran him over getting out the door,” says McGee. “I was strictly on standby the next day. I knew I wasn’t going to play. So, I went out and had a nice time in Hollywood. And technically, I wasn’t actually out that late. I made it to breakfast with the rest of the team in the morning. I told Boyd Dowler, ‘I hope you don’t get hurt. I’m not in very good shape.’ But Dowler just shrugged it off.”

As the game started, McGee was busy on the sidelines discussing plans for teammate Paul Hornung’s Las Vegas stag party when Lombardi started screaming for him.

“When I heard him hollering like that, I thought I was busted,” says McGee. “It went through my head that he was going to fine me the $10,000 right there. I didn’t know any other reason that he’d yell at me.”

As it turns out, three plays into the game, Boyd Dowler had gone down with a separated shoulder, and Lombardi was yelling for McGee to go in. McGee had not even brought his helmet out of the locker room. As he ran into the game with a borrowed lineman’s helmet, Max McGee, at age 34, was the oldest player on the field.

Under pressure from a rush, Packers quarterback Bart Starr threw a wobbly pass downfield to McGee. “I stuck my hand back just to try to break up the interception, and the damned ball stuck to the palm of my hand. I had no idea I was trying to catch it,” jokes McGee.

He tucked the ball under his arm, broke free from double coverage and ran. The run took him 24 yards downfield and into the end zone. The hungover veteran had scored the first touchdown in Super Bowl history.

[Soulstation1]

I was never a Packers fan, but Max McGhee was a good one and I respected him for that.

R.I.P.

But what was he doing up on a roof at 75? Guess he still though of himself as a tough guy.

Story i heard

His wife told him to stay off the roof, she left the house and he went up there anyways