William Max McGee (July 16, 1932 – October 20, 2007) was a professional football player, a wide receiver and punter for the
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. It is the th ...
in the
NFL
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...
. He played from 1954 to 1967, and is best known for his seven receptions for 138 yards and two touchdowns, scoring the first touchdown, in the first Super Bowl in
1967
Events
January
* January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair.
* January 5
** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establ ...
.
Early life
McGee played
high school football
High school football (french: football au lycée) is gridiron football played by high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both countries, but its popularity is declining, partl ...
in White Oak, Texas, and was the first player in high-school football history ever to rush for over 3,000 yards in a single season. He rushed for 3,048 his senior year as a White Oak Roughneck in 1949.
McGee played college football at
Tulane University
Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into a comprehensive pu ...
fullback Fullback or Full back may refer to:
Sports
* A position in various kinds of football, including:
** Full-back (association football), in association football (soccer), a defender playing in a wide position
** Fullback (gridiron football), in Americ ...
and a top punter. At the time, Tulane was a member of the
Southeastern Conference
The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities o ...
.
Professional career
McGee was selected in the
fifth round
Fifth is the ordinal form of the number five.
Fifth or The Fifth may refer to:
* Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as in the expression "pleading the Fifth"
* Fifth column, a political term
* Fifth disease, a contagious rash t ...
(51st overall) of the
1954 NFL draft
The 1954 National Football League Draft was held on January 28, 1954, at The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia.
This was the eighth year that the first overall pick was a bonus pick determined by lottery. With the previous seven winners ...
by the Packers. He was the punter during the first few years of his career. In his rookie season in 1954, McGee led the NFL in punting yards while catching 36 passes for 614 yards and nine
touchdown
A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Americ ...
s. He missed the next two seasons (
1955
Events January
* January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama.
* January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut.
* January 18– 20 – Battle of Yiji ...
and
1956
Events
January
* January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan.
* January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming, are kille ...
) to serve as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force, but returned to become the Packers' leading receiver from 1958 to
1962
Events January
* January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand.
* January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism.
* January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wo ...
. McGee was one of the few bright spots on the 1958 team, which finished the season with a league-low 1-10-1 record, the worst in Packers history. During 1958, he led the NFL in yards per catch average (23.2), punting yards (2,716), and net yards average (36.0).
After
Vince Lombardi
Vincent Thomas Lombardi (June 11, 1913 – September 3, 1970) was an American football coach and executive in the National Football League (NFL). Lombardi is considered by many to be the greatest coach in football history, and he is recognized a ...
took over as head coach in January
1959
Events January
* January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance.
* January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...
, McGee may be best known for his performance during the first Super Bowl game. He helped the team to six NFL championship appearances, five NFL championship wins, and two Super Bowl titles during the remaining years of his career. He was a
Pro Bowl
The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (starting in 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players.
The format has changed thro ...
selection during the season.
Despite reductions in playing time due to injuries and age, McGee's final two seasons were the ones for which his career is best remembered. In the
1966
Events January
* January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko.
* January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo is ...
season, McGee caught only four passes for 91 yards and a touchdown as the Packers recorded a 12–2 record and advanced to
Super Bowl I
The first AFL–NFL World Championship Game (known retroactively as Super BowlI and referred to in contemporaneous reports, including the game's radio broadcast, as the Super Bowl) was an American football game played on January 15, 1967, at the ...
against the
Kansas City Chiefs
The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division.
The t ...
. McGee did not expect to play in the game, and he violated his team's curfew policy and spent the night before the Super Bowl out on the town. The next morning, he told starting receiver Boyd Dowler, "I hope you don't get hurt. I'm not in very good shape," alluding to his hangover. Dowler went down with a separated shoulder on the Packers' second drive of the game, and McGee, who had to borrow a teammate's helmet because he had not brought his own out of the locker room, was put into the game. A few plays later, McGee made a one-handed reception of a pass from
Bart Starr
Bryan Bartlett Starr (January 9, 1934 – May 26, 2019) was an American professional football quarterback and head coach for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at the University of Al ...
, took off past Chiefs defender
Fred Williamson
Frederick Robert Williamson (born March 5, 1938), also known as The Hammer, is an American actor and former professional American football defensive back who played mainly in the American Football League during the 1960s. Williamson is perhaps ...
, and ran 37 yards to score the first touchdown in Super Bowl history. This was a repeat of his performance in the NFL championship game two weeks earlier, when he had also caught a touchdown pass after relieving an injured Dowler. By the end of the game, McGee had recorded seven receptions for 138 yards and two touchdowns, in a 35-10 Packers' victory.
The following year, he recorded a 35-yard reception in the third quarter of
Super Bowl II
The second AFL-NFL World Championship Game (known retroactively as Super Bowl II) was an American football game played on January 14, 1968, at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida. The National Football League (NFL)'s defending champion Green Bay P ...
that set up a touchdown in the Packers' 33–14 win over the
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Ra ...
. McGee retired shortly after the game and finished his 12-season career with 345 receptions for 6,346 yards and 12 carries for 121 yards. He scored 51 touchdowns (50 receiving and one fumble recovery). On special teams, he punted 256 times for 10,647 yards, an average of 41.6 yards per punt, and returned four kickoffs for 69 yards.
Career as a celebrity restaurateur
McGee entered into a restaurant partnership with Packer left guard
Fuzzy Thurston
Frederick Charles "Fuzzy" Thurston (December 29, 1933 – December 14, 2014) was an American football player who played offensive guard for the Baltimore Colts and the Green Bay Packers.
Early years
Born and raised in the small western Wiscons ...
; they operated the Left Guard Charcoal Houses in
Appleton
Appleton may refer to:
People
*Appleton (surname)
Places Australia
* Appleton Dock
Canada
* Appleton, Newfoundland and Labrador
* Appleton, Ontario
United Kingdom
* Appleton, a deserted medieval village site in the parish of Flitcham w ...
Madison Madison may refer to:
People
* Madison (name), a given name and a surname
* James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States
Place names
* Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital of Wisconsin and the largest city known by this ...
Eau Claire Eau Claire (French for "clear water", ''pl.'' ''eaux claires'') is the name of a number of locations and features in North America. The name is pronounced as if it were spelled "O'Clare".
Place names (Canada)
Communities
*Eau Claire, Calgary, a n ...
. They also operated the Left Guard Steak Houses in
Menasha
Menasha () is a city in Calumet and Winnebago counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 18,268 at the 2020 census. Of this, 15,144 were in Winnebago County, and 2,209 were in Calumet County. The city is located mostly in Winne ...
,
Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...
After retiring from football, McGee became a major partner in developing the popular Chi-Chi's chain of Mexican restaurants with restaurateur Marno McDermott.
McGee was inducted into the
Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combin ...
in 1975. His ties to the Packers continued from 1979 to 1998 when he served as the
color commentator
A color commentator or expert commentator is a sports commentator who assists the main (play-by-play) commentator, typically by filling in when play is not in progress. The phrase "colour commentator" is primarily used in Canadian English and th ...
for radio broadcasts of Packers' football games. With droll wit and keen insights, McGee was extremely popular as a color commentator.
McGee founded the Max McGee National Research Center for Juvenile Diabetes in 1999 at the
Children's Hospital of Wisconsin
Children's Wisconsin (formerly Children's Hospital of Wisconsin) is a nationally ranked, freestanding, 298-bed, pediatric acute care children's hospital located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is affiliated with the Medical College of Wisconsin and ...
. He raised money for
diabetes
Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level (hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ...
research.
Cancer
McGee was diagnosed with
colon cancer
Colorectal cancer (CRC), also known as bowel cancer, colon cancer, or rectal cancer, is the development of cancer from the colon or rectum (parts of the large intestine). Signs and symptoms may include blood in the stool, a change in bowel ...
at age 56 in April 1989, but it was caught early and he recovered after surgery.
Death
In 2007, at the age of 75, McGee died after a fall at his home in Minnetonka Beach, Minnesota, a suburb west of
Minneapolis
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with list of lakes in Minneapolis, thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. ...
. His wife said he had been suffering from an early form of Alzheimer's disease for the previous five years.