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October 21, 2007

McGee dies after fall in Minneapolis
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/7357918
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Complete article:

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Max McGee, the unexpected
hero of the first Super Bowl and a long-time challenge
for Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi, died Satur-
day 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 White-
side said. Efforts to resuscitate McGee were unsuc-
cessful.

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 Hor-
nung 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 ques-
tions: 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 young-
est son, Dallas, lives with the disease.

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

Funeral arrangements were pending.

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