'A Long Story,' but told so well
Announcer Max Falkenstien was courtstidefor 60 of Kansas basketball's 110 years.
Friday, February 15th, 2008
Editor’s note: The following article originally appeared in The University Daily Kansan on Feb. 28, 2006, the day before Max Falkenstien’s final broadcast of a Kansas men’s basketball home game.
When Max Falkenstien went on the air to broadcast his first KU men’s basketball game, Dean Smith was starting high school, Wilt Chamberlain was a gangly 9-year-old in Philadelphia, Roy Williams’ birth was four years away and Bill Self would not be born for more than a decade and a half. It was 1946, Max was 21, and the Oklahoma A&M Aggies — now Oklahoma State — were playing the Jayhawks in a game featuring two legendary coaches, Hank Iba and Phog Allen. Iba’s Aggies defeated Phog’s Jayhawks on the way to a national championship. Sixty years and more than 2,100 basketball and football games later, Max, 81, broadcast his final home game when Kansas played Colorado in Allen Fieldhouse on March 1, 2006, making him the most senior Jayhawk honored on senior night. In his 60 years as a Jayhawk radio announcer, Max has traveled from sunny Hawaii to frantic New York City’s Madison Square Garden to blistering Anchorage, Alaska. He announced Jayhawk basketball national championships in Seattle in 1952 and in Kansas City, Mo., in 1988. He has played golf with Dean Smith, landed Roy Williams in trouble at a Florida Sea World, fallen in love with a baby gorilla named Max and made thousands of fans through his distinct baritone voice on the radio.
How did all this happen?
“Oh, that’s a long story,” he said — 60 years long.
Going live
It started in high school when Max went on a field trip to the University of Kansas. It was a journalism excursion to learn and practice radio broadcasting. A teacher told Max he had an amazing voice, and she recommended he try his hand at broadcasting. He heeded that advice. Max was broadcasting news for WREN radio when he was asked to broadcast that playoff game between the Aggies and the Jayhawks. With no prior experience and no one teaching him how, he took the job. Little did he realize that he would continue calling games for KU into the next century, from the “Big Dipper,” Wilt Chamberlain, to the “Kansas Comet,” Gale Sayers, to Danny Manning and the 1988 championship basketball team to Nick Reid and the Forth Worth Bowl champions.
Old friends
The voice of the Jayhawks said his favorite moment as a broadcaster was the 1952 basketball national championship game. The Phog Allen-coached team sported Player of the Year Clyde Lovelette, who led Kansas to an 80-63 shellacking of St. John’s in the game. One member of that team was Dean Smith, now the winningest coach in men’s basketball history. The two first met when Max broadcast a high school basketball playoff game in March 1949 between Smith’s Topeka High School and Lawrence High School.
Smith remembers that game because Max “made me sound good,” he said.
The two remain close friends, playing golf together whenever Smith is in town.
“He’s a good putter, but he needs to work on his iron play,” Smith said.
Max admitted, “I can’t put the ball on the green from a hundred yards.”
Regardless of missed greens and miles of separation, Smith said, “I always look forward to seeing him.”
Popcorn and dolphins
Roy Williams, who left his job as an assistant to Smith at North Carolina to coach the Jayhawks, said he had “a million Max stories” from his 15 years at Kansas.
“We were with the team in Gainesville, and we decided to go Sea World,” he said.
Williams said he and Max were standing next to a dolphin pool, and Williams was eating from a bag of popcorn.
“Do dolphins like popcorn?” Williams asked Max.
“I think they would, coach,” Max said, egging Williams on to throw a handful into the tank.
Williams did exactly that, and he will never forget what ensued.
As the kernels hit the water, a worker across the pool yelled angrily at Williams.
“‘Hey! Are you trying to kill our dolphins?’” Williams said, impersonating the park employee.
Shocked, Williams turned to Max for support. To his surprise, Max was gone, leaving Williams to take the scolding.
“I turned around and he was 50 feet away,” Williams laughed. “It was his idea, and I was the one getting yelled at.”
Max got away, safe from park security.
“When he threw it I was at the dolphin tank. When he turned around I was at the whale tank,” Max said.
Now coaching at North Carolina, Williams stays close with Max.
“I never looked at Max as a member of the media. I looked at him as a friend,” Williams said.
No matter where the road took Max, he always found his way home to his wife, Isobel. The couple has two children, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Max said life on the road was not taxing on his family matters.
The great-grandfather said he traveled for four or five football games a year and about 15 road basketball games.
He said he always looked forward to going home, but enjoyed sightseeing along the way.
60 years of love
Max’s Midwestern charm has attracted many admirers in his 60-year tenure. Kansas Athletics Director Lew Perkins said, “Max is just history.”
Williams said, “There are few Max Falkenstiens. No one will ever touch 60 again.”
Smith said, “All you can do is praise it. He shouldn’t retire.”
Fans he encounters on gameday let him know how they feel about him. Perkins said, “He is one of the most beloved people in Kansas history.”
So beloved, in fact, the Topeka Zoo once named a gorilla “Max the Gorilla” after the announcer.
Max even went with a zoo crew to Dallas to pick up the zoo’s new baby gorilla, cradling him in his arms like an infant on the flight home to Topeka.
Legend of the Phog
Max shies away from the word “legend,” which his friends throw at him like passes quarterbacks have thrown to receivers in the games he’s called for six decades. “Legend is a hard word to know what it means,” he said. “I don’t know if it goes to someone who’s been around so damn long, or if they just enjoyed the work they’ve done.” One longtime listener, Earl Merkel, 73, travels from Russell to Lawrence for each home game. Merkel has listened to Max since the late 1940s. For away games, Merkel turns down the television and tunes in to his favorite radio broadcaster for sideline analysis. He said he had enjoyed Max every year for six decades. Everyone in the state knows him by his first name, Merkel said.
“Everyone realizes he’s a warehouse of athletics knowledge,” he said.
Hank Booth, the public address announcer at men’s basketball games, said he had known Max since he was a child and also had listened to Max for decades.
“He’s a legendary Kansas broadcaster,” said Booth, whose family was influential in the development of radio in Lawrence.
Signing off
In an arena where fans stand on their toes to watch long, lanky players enter the court — many near 7 feet tall — a 5-foot-8 man with snowy white hair, a blue sweater and khakis keeps his own trail of admirers.
As Max makes his way to the sideline, students young enough to be his great-grandchildren stand up for Max, like one blue wave, sparked by the broadcaster’s splash. He is the only 81-year-old who receives a standing ovation every time he steps on the court. Max will make that walk one last time in the fieldhouse on Wednesday. When he leaves, he will take his signature broadcast delivery with him. Radio speakers will no longer carry his balanced analysis and lively, articulate, baritone voice.
He calls his 60th season a “good place to stop.”
Where will Max go after the last buzzer sounds? If he had his choice of all the places he has called away games, he’d head for Hawaii.
“Maui’s my favorite, hands down,” he said.
He appreciated the history of Madison Square Garden and said, laughing, “The Alaska shootout was interesting, but I don’t recommend anyone take a trip there for Thanksgiving.”
Max will not disappear completely from the Jayhawk nation. He will join the Athletics Department after retiring from broadcasting, working directly for Perkins on special assignments.
But Jayhawk fans need not worry. The man they’ve known simply as Max for 60 years will not disappear into the phog.
“I’ll be around,” he said.
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