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We’ve all heard it said that if you pursue your passion, the rest will follow.  To me, Pistol Pete is the purest example of that belief.  He was the original gym rat, first spectacular showman, best ball-handler, and one of the most prolific scorers the game of basketball has ever known.  To watch Pete play, was to watch someone who had completely mastered the game.

He made it look effortless.  So fast, fluid and precise were his movements that it’s hard to compare him to anyone else.  Lebron without the bulk and the dunk, but with the long range shot- and eyes in the back of his head.  Like Thelonious Monk- you never would have thought of it because it’s outside your reasoning, but when he does it, yeah man.

Pistol Pete was in a league of his own, and on top of the world.  But with success comes trials, and Pete had his share of them.  In the end, he found “the life” that he had always been looking for.

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‘The radio was playing and the morning news was on.  I was startled to hear that Pete Maravich, the basketball player, had collapsed on a basketball court in Pasadena, just fell over and never got up. I’d seen Maravich play in New Orleans, when the Utah Jazz were the New Orleans Jazz.  He was something to see – mop of brown hair, floppy socks – the holy terror of the basketball world – high flyin’ – magician of the court.  The night I saw him he dribbled the ball with his head, scored a behind-the-back, no-look basket – dribbled the length of the court, threw the ball up over the glass and caught his own pass. He was fantastic.  Scored something like 38 points. He could have played blind.”

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-Bob Dylan

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Maravich got his nickname “Pistol” in high school. He would shoot the ball from the side like he was holding a pistol. Since he wasn’t strong enough to shoot it from the front someone from a newspaper said “He shoots like he’s holding a pistol.”

His father was the varsity coach at LSU and offered the “Pistol” a spot at LSU. In his first game on the LSU freshman team Maravich put up 50 points, 14 rebounds, and 11 assists against Southeastern Louisiana College.  In only three years playing for his father at LSU, Maravich scored 3,667 points — 1,138 points in 1968, 1,148 points in 1969 and 1,381 points in 1970 while averaging 43.8, 44.2 and 44.5 points per game.  In the process, “Pistol Pete” set 11 NCAA and 34 Southeastern Conference records, as well as every LSU record in points scored, scoring average, field goals attempted and made, and free throws attempted and made, and assists.  In his collegiate career, the 6′ 5″ guard averaged an incredible 44.2 points per game in 83 contests and led the NCAA in scoring in each of his three seasons.  Maravich made an average of 13 shots a game from what is now the three-point line; if the three-point line had existed when he played, he would have averaged 57 points a game.  He also set an NCAA record by scoring more than 50 points 28 times.  He was named a three-time All-American and still holds many of these records, more than 35 years later.  Notably, his 3,667 points don’t factor in the 741 he scored his freshman year, or the fact that they played without the three-point line.

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“Pistol” Pete Maravich was a three time first team All-American and was named The Sporting News‘ player of the year in 1970, and received the USBWA College Player of the Year and Naismath Award as well. He scored a personal record of 69 points vs. Alabama in a game that year, and garnered numerous other awards and college records.  Pete was classified as one of the greatest players in college basketball history who never played in the NCAA tournament.  Maravich shone on the court and LSU slowly turned around a lackluster program.  The year before he arrived, the varsity posted a 3-20 record.  In his senior season, LSU was 20-8 and participated in the NIT, where they were defeated by Marquette 101-79 in the semi-finals.

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After graduating from LSU in 1970, Maravich was the third selection in the first round of that year’s NBA draft and made league history when he signed a $1.6 million contract — one of the highest salaries at the time — with the Atlanta Hawks.  He wasted little time, averaging 23.2 points per game his rookie season and was named to the NBA All-Rookie Team.  After spending four seasons in Atlanta, he was traded to the New Orleans Jazz for 8 players, where he peaked as an NBA showman and superstar. He made the All-NBA First Team in ’76 and ’77 and the All-NBA Second Team in ’73 and ’78.  He led the NBA in scoring in the 1976-77 with 31.1 points per game. Prior to the’79-80 season, Maravich moved with the team to Utah.  He was waived by the Jazz on January 18, 1980 and was quickly picked up by the Boston Celtics where he played the rest of the season alongside Larry Legend.

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Maravich retired in the fall of 1980 from a leg injury.  Forced to leave basketball, Pete’s love and sole purpose in life up to this point– he became a recluse for two years.  The injury unfortunately also started his downward spiral into alcoholism, and signaled the end of his professional playing career.  Through it all, Pete said he was searching “for life.” In 1982, he became a Christian and began traveling the country sharing his new found faith.

In May of 1987, Pete Maravich was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.  At age 39, he was one of the younger players ever to be honored.

On January 5, 1988, Pete Maravich collapsed and died, at age 40, of a heart attack just after playing in a pickup basketball game in Pasadena.  An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a rare congenital defect.

“He’ll be remembered always”, former LSU head basketball coach Dale Brown said on hearing the news of Maravich’s death. “When we see some tousled-haired kid with drooping socks standing on some semi-darkened court or in a yard after everyone else has gone home, he will be shooting a basketball, and we will remember Pete.”

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