Max

Max McGee died yesterday. I didn't get to see Max McGee play - my first memories of the Packers are from around 1969 or 1970, just after the glory years - but like most Packer fans, I really felt like I knew Max. He remained a part of the Packers long after he retired, teaming with Jim Irwin on the radio broadcasts of the team through the lean years and into the Brett Favre era. It seemed like everyone in Wisconsin used to listen to the Packer Radio Network - it was standard practice in many households to watch Packer games on television with the sound off, with a radio tuned to WTMJ or WHBY or WIBA, to name just a few stations I listened to over the years. Jim Irwin was The Voice of Wisconsin sports, but the key to the broadcasts was always Max McGee.

Max was a good ol' boy, in the best sense of the term. He and Paul Hornung had a well-deserved reputation for carousing and some of the stories tied to Max were, shall we say, a bit bawdy. But there was more to it. Max was fun to listen to and usually said something each week that would make you laugh out loud, but what made his humor work was the intelligence behind it. Max had an edge to him when he needed it - on the football field, in the broadcast booth, or in the business world. He parlayed his early restauranting partnership with Fuzzy Thurston into a multi-million dollar business empire by founding the Chi-Chi's Mexican restaurant chain that essentially introduced Mexican cuisine (and margaritas the size of birdbaths) to the Midwest. Back in the early days, going to he and Fuzzy's Left Guard restaurant was always a special occasion for those of us growing up in Appleton. My beloved stepmother Dar worked for Max and Fuzzy for years and I can still see the image of the place in my mind's eye - especially the wall covered with late 60s-era NFL helmets. In our small city, it was a reminder that we were connected, in some small way, with the Big Time.

And Max was Big Time in other ways - he gave millions of dollars and great chunks of time to charitable endeavors. If there was a good cause that needed promoting, Max would do his part and more. While Max had faded from the public eye in recent years, his legacy remains strong. RIP.