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Max Falkenstien

______

HON. DENNIS MOORE

of kansas

in the house of representatives

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Mr. MOORE of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Max Falkenstien, the ``Voice of the Kansas Jayhawks'', who will be retiring at the conclusion of the 2005--2006 men's basketball season at the University of Kansas.

The conclusion of the current season will mark Max Falkenstien's 60th season of broadcasting Kansas University sporting events. At age 81, he has been inducted into the Naisimith Basketball Hall of Fame, the College Football Hall of Fame, the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame, and the KU Athletic Hall of Fame. He was the first inductee of the Lawrence High School Hall of Honor. Additionally, he has been awarded an honorary ``K'' by the Kansas Lettermen's Club. The Sporting News in 2001 named Falkenstien ``the best college radio personality in the country'' and ESPN's Dick Vitale included KU's Bob Davis and Falkenstien in his ``Sweet 16'' of the best announcer teams in the United States.

A true legend, Max Falkenstien has been synonymous with KU athletics for 6 decades. As KU basketball coach Bill Self recently said in the Lawrence Journal-World, ``Max has performed at the highest level over an extended period of time like very few in his profession.'' Falkenstien broadcast his first basketball game--an NCAA tournament game in Kansas City between KU and Oklahoma A&M--on March 18, 1946. His next broadcast was KU versus TCU in football on September 21, 1946. He was play-by-play voice of the Jayhawks for 39 years and then switched to a commentator's role in September 1984 when Bob Davis assumed play- by-play duties. Falkenstien provided play-by-play for the Big Eight Conference basketball game of the week between 1968 and 1971, and for more than 3 decades hosted football and basketball coaches' TV programs, including those for Don Fambrough, Pepper Rogers, Mike Gottfried, Ted Owens, Larry Brown and Roy Williams.

Mr. Speaker, I include with this statement a recent article from the Lawrence Journal-World summarizing Max Falkenstien's outstanding career and I join with all KU fans in wishing him well in his long overdue, richly deserved retirement as ``Voice of the Kansas Jayhawks.''

Copyright © 2006 - 2008 by Andrew J. Morris and Patrick C. Robbins