Sunday, October 21, 2007

Max McGee 1932-2007

Max McGee, the man who scored the first Super Bowl touchdown, died Saturday at the age of 75. The former Green Bay Packer fell from the roof of his Minneapolis home while trying to remove leaves.

The following is from the Pioneer Press:

Thrust into the Packers' starting lineup during 1967's Super Bowl I after Boyd Dowler suffered a shoulder injury, McGee - still hung over from a night of partying - caught seven passes for 138 yards and two TDs to lift Green Bay to a 35-10 win over the Kansas City Chiefs.

ESPN.com shed more light on McGee's personality:


Though an admirer of (Vince) 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."

No comments:

Post a Comment