”If you are among the fortunate ones, you can look back over your life and find people who played key roles in helping you become the person you are today. People who helped you form your value structure and develop your character. The man that played a key role in my life was Max Burnell.
”Everyone knows that he could draw X`s and O`s better than anyone who ever coached in the Chicago Catholic League. What is often forgotten, and of much greater importance, is the type of men he developed. Ask any of the 200 St. George High School graduates in this room tonight what role Max Burnell played in their lives, and I guarantee Coach Burnell will be first or second on everyone`s list.”-Phil Zera, St. George High, `60
Here they were. Crowded into the ballroom at Chicago`s Hyatt Regency, the first Friday night in March, for the annual Rockne Dinner. Max Burnell, 75, had been awarded the Frank Leahy Prep Coach Award by Chicago`s Notre Dame Club. He was their prep coach of the year.
Except the last time Burnell coached a high school football game was in 1979 at New Buffalo (Mich.) High School. The last time he coached in Chicago was in 1962, for St. George. And he has lived in Maybank, Texas, since 1980.
”Max Burnell should have been the subject of a tribute for many years,” says the Rockne dinner`s chairman, Mike Roche.
For the ceremony, one of Burnell`s old players and closest friends, George Paulik, asked former St. George players to write letters about their old coach. More than 200 flowed in.
Paulik requested financial donations for their old coach. More than $10,000 poured in, with new donations still arriving each day.
Paulik, class of `49, stepped to the podium to introduce his coach. He peered out at the crowd, took a breath and began reading a portion of the letters.
”Congratulations on your selection as the recipient of the Frank Leahy Prep Coach Award. It is long overdue. Those of us who were fortunate enough to play on your teams will never forget the passion you brought to the game and your concern for the welfare of your boys. Even our `58 team, mediocre at best, saw 13 of our 16 graduating seniors go off to college on full scholarships. Your concern that they receive good educations for their future lives was paramount.”
Fred Eisman, class of `60, St. George High School
Burnell is the all-time winningest coach in Chicago Catholic League history. Under Burnell, from 1943-1962, St. George football teams won three Catholic League titles, 11 North Section titles and two all-Chicago championships. He produced 35 all-state players and compiled a 167-40-11 record, including a 39-game winning streak from 1951-1957, still a league record.
There was the time in 1943, the same year his team won the Kelly Bowl by beating Wendell Phillips 19-12, when he took his team by train to New York`s Polo Grounds and won the national high school title. St. George defeated New York state champion Mount St. Michael 25-20 after trailing 14-0 in the game`s first minute.
There was the time later that same year when he took over the basketball team and led it to the all-Chicago championship.
There was the time in 1954, the same year he was rumored to be taking a job as an assistant to Terry Brennan at Notre Dame, when Burnell collapsed during a Tuesday afternoon practice and still made it back to coach Sunday`s Catholic League title game against Mt. Carmel in front of more than 100,000 fans at Solider Field.
”The condition came about from a virus infection and overwork,” said Dr. James Pierce, St. George`s team physician.
But ask Burnell what he remembers most about those years of coaching, and he pauses. The telephone line is scratchy. ”In my 20 years at St. George, I`ll always remember that I had nine valedictorians play for me,” he says.
”In addition to being one of the greatest coaches in the Chicago Catholic League has ever known, Max Burnell is a man of deep faith, high morals and unquestioned loyalty. He would do anything to help his players, and they would do anything to help him. I doubt if there are any former St. George football players in this room tonight that had the privilege of playing for Knute Rockne at Notre Dame, but we came pretty doggone close when we played for Max Burnell at St. George.”
Phil Zera
The numbers in all the publications differ, but after Burnell resigned from St. George in `63, he spent 16 years spread among Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas, United Township High School in East Moline and New Buffalo High. He finished with a 319-89-11 record.
During his time at United Township, he and his wife, Kay, divorced. In 1979, he moved to Rockwell, Texas, to be closer to his daughter, Marla Moser. He also wanted to live on a lake, always his dream. He moved into a development at Indian Harbor and worked as a security guard there and at another development, six miles south, at Cherokee Shores.
One night in June of `83 at Cherokee Shores, Burnell had his dog Bruno, half wolf, half German shepherd, with him. Patrolling the area, Burnell noticed someone walking out of a house, stealing a stereo and television.
”Put that back,” Burnell hollered.
The man looked up and pulled out a revolver. ”You`re a dead duck now,”
the man said. ”Goodbye.”
Max yelled to Bruno, whom he had trained for three years, almost the same period he had coached each of his players. ”Go!”
And the dog charged 15 feet at full speed, just like one of his players would. He knocked down the burglar and sent the gun flying. ”After I picked up the gun, I had to get the dog off the man because he would have killed him,” Burnell says.
Today, Burnell, Bruno and another dog, Blacky, live in a little house with a shed and a 12-foot boat Burnell uses to fish. He lives off a $6,500 fixed income, with no job. The $10,000 will help.
He admits he`s lonely but says he has cable TV and lots of mail to keep him busy. He also has the memories of playing halfback for Notre Dame`s 1938 national championship team and five seasons with the Chicago Bears. No one can take those away.
His players continually try to convince him to come back to Chicago, but he has returned only on special occasions, like the Rockne dinner to accept his award.
”This banquet was an incredible thing,” Paulik says. ”This was a Notre Dame banquet, not a St. George banquet. A lot of those people probably never even heard of Max.
”Yet, after I read some of the letters, everyone in the room was giving him a standing ovation. Lou Holtz, Tim Brown, Moose Krause, the old athletic director at Notre Dame, those guys were all coming up to Max and asking him for his autograph. And Max had a tear in his eye.”
