Legendary Wabash College coach and athletics director Max Edward Servies passed away Saturday at the age of 85.
 
Servies, who first came to Wabash as a student in 1954 after graduating from Crawfordsville High School, served as the Little Giants' wrestling coach for 40 years before retiring in 2000. His Wabash teams accumulated 487 victories in dual meets with 38 consecutive winning seasons. Twenty-one Wabash wrestlers graduated as members of Phi Beta Kappa and three of his wrestlers earned NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships. He coached All-Americans Dan Emerson, Ryan Mills, Steve Wagner, John Rust, and his own son, Tim Servies. Max also spent 33 years as the College's Director of Athletics, stepping down from that position in 1998.
 
Max Servies was inducted into the Wabash Athletics Hall of Fame in 1988. He is also a member of the Indiana Wrestling Hall of Fame, the NCAA Division III Wrestling Coaches Association Hall of Fame, and the Indiana Football Hall of Fame after serving 28 seasons as an assistant football coach at Wabash. Servies earned the Wabash Alumni Award of Merit in 1983 and the Indianapolis Association of Wabash Men's Monon Bell Citation in 1994.
 
Servies graduated from Wabash in 1958 as a biology major. He earned a master's degree in biology from Purdue University in 1962. Wabash honored Servies with an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 2009.
 
Servies, with help from former Wabash professor and long-time wrestling supporter Dr. David Phillips, recently completed Some Little Giants, a book detailing the history of Wabash College athletics from its start in 1865 through the 2017 season.
 
Servies is survived by his wife, Nancy, along with his brother, Dick, and sisters Lois and Mary Ellen. He is also survived by three daughters, Alisa, Christina, and Stacy, three sons, Kirk, Kent, and Tim, as well as 21 grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren, and several nieces and nephews.
 
Visitation for Max Servies will take place at Burkhart Funeral Home in Crawfordsville from 1-4 p.m. Sunday, October 17. Services will begin at 4 p.m. on Sunday with entombment at Oak Hill Cemetery Mausoleum scheduled for Monday, October 18, at 11 a.m.