R.I.P.: Max Falkenstein, Kansas Radio Sportscaster

Max Falkenstien

Max Falkenstien, who broadcast University of Kansas football and men’s basketball games for 60 years, died Monday afternoon. He was 95.

Falkenstien did his first radio broadcast of a KU basketball game – an NCAA Tournament game in Kansas City between KU and Oklahoma A&M – on March 18, 1946. His next KU broadcast was the Jayhawks’ football opener against TCU on September 21, 1946. He served as play-by-play voice of the Jayhawks for 39 years and switched to the commentator’s role in September 1984, when Bob Davis assumed the play-by-play duties; together they did KU football and basketball games until Falkenstien’s retirement in 2006. The duo became so well known that they were referred to simply as “Bob and Max.” Falkenstien retired as color commentator on Jayhawk Radio Network broadcasts after the last game of the 2005-06 men’s basketball season – his 60th season of covering Jayhawk athletics.

“Although I still am in good health,” he said at the time, “I realize there finally comes a time when one must call an end to something, no matter how much he enjoys it.”

Kansas Athletics honored Falkenstien by making him the only non-player to have his “jersey” (60) honored in the rafters of Allen Fieldhouse. The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame paid tribute to him in 2004 with its Curt Gowdy Award, and the College Football Hall of Fame honored him in 1996 with its Chris Shenkel Award. He was inducted into the State of Kansas Sports Hall of Fame and the Kansas Athletics Hall of Fame, and was the first inductee of the Lawrence High School Hall of Honor. He was awarded an honorary “K” by the K Club, Kansas Athletics’ association of former student-athletes.

The Sporting News in 2001 named Falkenstien “the best college radio personality in the country,” and television’s Dick Vitale selected Bob and Max to his “Sweet 16” of the best college basketball announcing teams in the country.

Falkenstien first worked in radio at WREN in Lawrence. He worked at WIBW radio and television in Topeka, and for one year as general manager at Sunflower Cable in Lawrence. As famous as he was for his sports broadcasting, he reported live during two of Topeka’s most famous news events as well – the 1951 flood and the 1966 tornado.