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University of Detroit Mercy lost one of its greatest student-athletes as Titan Hall of Famer and two-sport standout Bruce Maher ’60\u00a0entered eternal life on July 6 at his home in Wauwatosa, Wisc., at the age of 80. Maher had battled cancer for nearly 20 years.<\/p>\n
Maher starred in football and baseball at University of Detroit from 1958-60 before playing minor league baseball and then embarking on a 10-year career in the NFL.<\/p>\n
He led the Titans in rushing in his junior (576 yards) and senior year (595 yards) as well as scoring (42\/66 points) and in receiving yards (295) as a junior.<\/p>\n
Maher earned All-Catholic All-American in 1958 and 1959 and played in the 1960 College Football All-Star Game at Soldier Field in Chicago. He was inducted into the University of Detroit Hall of Fame in 1979.<\/p>\n
On the diamond as a catcher, he was a .394 hitter who left as the program’s career leader in batting average and slugging percentage (.627). He led the nation with 44 RBI in 1960 and helped the team to a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances in 1959 and 1960 under the guidance of legendary head coach Lloyd Brazil.<\/p>\n
He was drafted in the 15th round of the National Football League in 1959 and spent eight seasons with the Detroit Lions (1960-1967) before finishing his career with the New York Giants (1968-1969). He was named NFL team MVP for the Lions in 1965 and for the Giants in 1968. As a pro, he played in 136 career games and tallied 22 interceptions, recovered four fumbles and posted three safeties.<\/p>\n
After his rookie season with the Lions in 1960, he played a year of minor league baseball for the Detroit Tigers Class B affiliate in Durham, North Carolina.<\/p>\n
As a prep at University of Detroit Jesuit, he was tabbed Detroit News First Team All-City and Detroit Free Press First Team All-State in football and was inducted into that school’s Hall of Fame in 2015.<\/p>\n
After his career was over, he co-founded the largest privately owned telecommunications company in Wisconsin in the early 1980s. He was a sportsman his whole life, enjoyed playing golf and also played in annual Gus Macker basketball tournaments with his sons.<\/p>\n
He is survived by his wife, Gerda Marie Maher, six children: Sheila (Francis), John (Kelly), Sharon Lee, Luke (Marie), Matthew (Elizabeth) and Jesalyn (Jared), and 13 grandchildren.<\/p>\n
A memorial service will be held Friday, Aug. 3, at Gesu Catholic Church in Milwaukee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
University of Detroit Mercy lost one of its greatest student-athletes as Titan Hall of Famer and two-sport standout Bruce Maher ’60\u00a0entered eternal life on July 6 at his home in Wauwatosa, Wisc., at the age of 80. Maher had battled cancer for nearly 20 years. Maher starred in football and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[12,22],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Kcng-rR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1727"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1727"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1730,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1727\/revisions\/1730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}