Former Green Bay Packer Max McGee dies

Zero2Cool

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Former Green Bay Packer Max McGee died late Saturday afternoon following an accident at his home in Deephaven, KARE TV, Channel 11 of Minneapolis is reporting.

Police were called to his home around 5:20 p.m. on a report of an unconscious man who had fallen off the roof.

Emergency crews arrived and performed CPR on McGee but their efforts were not successful and he was pronounced dead.

Family members say McGee was blowing leaves off the roof when the accident happened. They call him a “kind, giving and honorable man.”

McGee played as a wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers from 1954 to 1967. He helped his team capture two Super Bowl wins and five NFL championships. He scored the first touchdown in Super Bowl history.

Later, McGee became the color commentator for radio broadcasts of Packers football games.

McGee also co-founded the popular restaurant chain “Chi-Chis.”

McGee was 75 years old and is survived by his wife, Denise, four children and numerous grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements are pending.
 

axelred13

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First thought: Oh man, that's terrible. Max was the best on the radio.

Second thought: What was a 75 yo man doing on the roof?
 

nathaniel

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First thought: Oh man, that's terrible. Max was the best on the radio.

Second thought: What was a 75 yo man doing on the roof?

The same thing my 81 year old grandpa does on the roof everyday. I'm worried to death every day that the same thing will happen to him. I have to watch him more than I can actually work.
 

longtimefan

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He will be missed..

He reminded me of Bob Uecker when he was covering Packer games..So much fun to listen to, always had a story, or a comment that just made you laugh
 

Buckeyepackfan

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This is very sad.
Max was the everyday Packer fans guy. He played the game of football hard but always seem to be able to enjoy life at the same time.

He is a Packer legend "on and off the field" this is a very sad day for all Packer fans.

RIP Max
 

Chamuko

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SO very sad...

My prayers for him and his family..

Very very sad,,, one of my old time favorite players...

Sad day today..

May he be in heaven by now talking with Vince about football
 
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Zero2Cool

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Packers great Max McGee dies; 'I just lost my best friend," Hornung says

The Associated Press

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.
 

packedhouse01

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Max McGee was the best. He had that unique ability to simplify life. When he talked, he talked in simple terms that everyone could understand. There were so many times I remember hearing Max and Jim talk and Max would say something, and I go, "well duh". I like McCarren a lot, but I really long for those days of Jim and Max. They could call a game and talk a game better than anyone in the business.
 

cheesey

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I heard this on the news last night, and i felt like i was punched in the gut. I felt the same when Ray Nitschke died. These are the heroes when i was a child, and every time one of them passes, i feel like part of me goes with them, part of my own past. I got to see Max at Fan Fest in 2006, and got a few nice pictures of him.
Another Packer great, gone.
RIP Max :cry:
 

Mortfini

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R.I.P max



on the nfl.com its got a great quote from Max "When it's third-and-10, you can take the milk drinkers and I'll take the whiskey drinkers every time."


Thoughts to his family
 

wpr

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axelred13 said:
First thought: Oh man, that's terrible. Max was the best on the radio.

Second thought: What was a 75 yo man doing on the roof?

The same thing my 81 year old grandpa does on the roof everyday. I'm worried to death every day that the same thing will happen to him. I have to watch him more than I can actually work.

A few months ago my father in law fell off the ladder and broke his hip. He is on coumadin so it could have been fatal for him.

Our prayers go out to the family. Max will be missed.

In 1979, he became an announcer for the Packer Radio Network with Jim Irwin until retiring in 1998.

It is a bit shocking to realize that it has been 10 years since he retired from the booth.
 

cheesey

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I wonder if it was the fall, or if maybe he had a heart attack or something that caused the fall. Guess we will find out sooner or later.
 

PackinSteel

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Have to admit I wasn't aware of his significance until now. It's tough when any childhood hero leaves us. My heart goes out to his family and Packer fans everywhere.
 

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RIP Max

Thank you for evrything you did for the Packer family.

My thoughts and prayers are with the Magee family at this very sad time
 

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