Max Falkenstien (April 9, 1924 – July 29, 2019) was an American radio sports announcer. In his 60-year career at the University of Kansas (1946-2006), Falkenstien covered more than 1,750 men's basketball games and 650 football games, a span that included every game played in Allen Fieldhouse until his retirement, and was one of the longest announcing tenures in sports. By comparison, Vin Scully's 67 seasons with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers is the record for longest broadcasting tenure with a single franchise in all of professional sports. Biography Falkenstien's father Earl was business manager of the KU athletic department for 33 years. Falkenstien's biology class at Liberty Memorial High School trooped over to KFKU, then KU's 50-watt radio station, in the early 1940s. "Each of us had to make some kind of comment -- it must have been a boring show," Falkenstien reflected, "and a lady came up to me afterward and asked me if wanted to be in radio because I had such a clear voice." Falkenstien's first job in radio was at WREN, then a Lawrence radio station. "A guy named Earl Bratten gave me some news copy to read and I got the job," Falkenstien said. He worked before and after school and on weekends, usually 40 hours a week, and earned $90 a month. "The first time I ever went on the air was a Sunday morning to give a promo for an Eleanor Roosevelt broadcast," Falkenstien said, smiling. "It was just a 30-second plug, but I was so scared when that red light came on." Falkenstien graduated from Liberty Memorial High School in 1942, six months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. After a semester at KU, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps in hopes of becoming a meteorologist. He left the service in March 1946. After leaving the service, he went back to work for WREN. His first assignment was to do the play-by-play for the NCAA district final game between KU and Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University). He obtained a degree in mathematics from Kansas University in 1948. He also did play-by-play on TVS Saturday telecasts of Big Eight Conference games for several years. He was joined by Kansas State University broadcaster Paul Deweese. Credited with founding the KU Sports Network not long after World War II ended, Falkenstien quickly gave up the network because he really wasn't interested