MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -Max McGee, the former Green Bay receiver who scored the first touchdown in Super Bowl history in an unexpected starring role, died Saturday after falling from the roof of his Deephaven home, police confirmed. He was 75.
Police were called to McGee’s suburban home around 5:20 p.m., Sgt. Chris Whiteside said. Efforts to resuscitate McGee were unsuccessful.
McGee was blowing leaves off the roof when the accident happened, local news reports said.
“I just lost my best friend,” former teammate Paul Hornung told the St. Paul Pioneer Press from his home in Louisville, Ky. “(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.”
A phone message at a number listed for an M. McGee in Deephaven wasn’t immediately returned.
McGee played on Green Bay’s 1967 and 1968 Super Bowl championship teams, scoring the first touchdown in on a pass from Bart Starr in the Packers’ 35-10 victory over Kansas City in the inaugural game.
After catching only four passes all season before the Super Bowl, he caught seven passes for 138 yards – a record that stood for 10 years.
He played for the Packers from 1954 to 1967, with an interruption for military service, helping them win five NFL championships. After his playing days, he became a Packers radio broadcaster, co-founded the Chi-Chi’s chain of Mexican restaurants and founded a diabetes research center.
McGee is survived by his wife, four children and several grandchildren.
Funeral arrangements were pending.
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Associated Press writer Carrie Antlfinger contributed to this story from Milwaukee.
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