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Peter Press Maravich (June 22, 1947 – January 5, 1988), nicknamed "Pistol Pete", was an American basketball player. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Maravich starred in college at Louisiana State University (LSU) and for three NBA teams. He is still the all-time leading NCAA Division I scorer with 3,667 points scored and an average of 44.2 points per game.[1] He accomplished this without the benefit of a three-point line and despite the fact that NCAA rules prohibited him from playing on the varsity team as a freshman. Years later former LSU head basketball coach Dale Brown charted every college game Maravich played, taking into consideration all shots he took. The coach calculated that at the NCAA rule of a three-point line at 19-foot (5.8 m), 9-inches from the rim, Maravich would have averaged thirteen 3-point scores per game, which would have given the player a career average of 57 points per game.[2] Maravich died suddenly at age 40 as a consequence of a previously undetected congenital heart defect. His last words, spoken less than a minute before he was stricken and died in the arms of James Dobson, were "I feel great."[3]
[edit] Early lifeMaravich was born in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, a small steel town in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. Maravich amazed his family and friends with his basketball abilities from an early age. His father, Press Maravich, a former professional player-turned-coach, showed Maravich the fundamentals starting when he was seven years old. Maravich would obsessively spend hours practicing ball control tricks, passes, head fakes, and long range shots. Maravich got his nickname "Pistol" in high school. He would shoot the ball from the side like he was holding a pistol. Maravich attended and played basketball at Daniel High School in Central, South Carolina from 1961 to 1963 while his father was the head basketball coach at Clemson University. While at Daniel, Maravich participated in the school's first ever game against a team from an all-black school. In 1963, his father joined the coaching staff at North Carolina State, and the family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, where Pete attended and played for Needham B. Broughton High School.[4] [edit] CollegeWhile Maravich would tell friends later in life he always desired to play basketball for West Virginia University and was all set to be a Mountaineer, his father was the varsity coach at LSU and his father 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.[5] 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 his collegiate career, the 6' 5" (1.96 m) guard averaged an incredible 44.2 points per game in 83 contests and led the NCAA in scoring in each of his three seasons.[6] He was a three-time All-American and, more than 35 years later, many of his records still stand. Notably, his 3,667 points don't factor in the 741 he scored his freshman year (at the time, freshmen were not allowed to play on varsity teams) or the fact that he did not have the benefit of the three-point line (instituted much later). Pete Maravich 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. [edit] NBAAfter graduating from LSU in 1970, Maravich was the third selection in the first round of that year's NBA player draft[7] and made league history when he signed a $1.9 million contract — one of the highest salaries at the time — with the Atlanta Hawks. He wasted little time becoming a prime time player by averaging 23.2 points per game his rookie season and being named to the NBA All-Rookie Team. After spending four seasons in Atlanta, Maravich 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 1976 and 1977 and the All-NBA Second Team in 1973 and 1978. He led the NBA in scoring in the 1976-77 season with 31.1 points per game. Prior to the 1979-80 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 Bird.[8] Maravich retired in the fall of 1980. He was known for the fake wrist pass "the pistol". [edit] Later life and deathA leg injury during the 1977-78 NBA season started a downward spiral that prompted the decline of his career. After the injury forced him to leave basketball in the fall of 1980, Maravich became a recluse for two years. Through it all, Maravich said he was searching "for life." He tried the practices of yoga and Hinduism, read Trappist monk Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain and took an interest in the field of ufology, the study of unidentified flying objects. He also explored vegetarianism and macrobiotics. Eventually, he embraced evangelical Christianity. A few years before his death, Maravich said: "I want to be remembered as a Christian, a person that serves Him to the utmost. Not as a basketball player."[9] Pete Maravich was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in May 1987. At age 39, he was one of the youngest players ever to be inducted. On January 5, 1988, Pete Maravich collapsed and died, at age 40, of a heart attack[10] while playing in a pickup basketball game in the gym at the First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena with a group that included Focus on the Family head James Dobson. (Maravich had flown out from his home in Louisiana to tape a segment for Dobson's radio show that aired later that day.) Dobson has said that his last words, less than a minute before he died, were "I feel great." An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a rare congenital defect; he had been born with a missing left coronary artery, a vessel which supplies blood to the muscle fibers of the heart. His right coronary artery was grossly enlarged and had been compensating for the defect.[11] "He'll be remembered always", former LSU head basketball coach Dale Brown said on hearing the news of Maravich's death.[cite this quote] At the age of 25 and years before his death, Maravich had told Pennsylvania reporter, Andy Nuzzo, "I don't want to play 10 years in the NBA and then die of a heart attack at 40."[12][13] Maravich is buried at Resthaven Gardens of Memory and Mausoleum in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. [edit] LegacyIn addition to his wife, Jackie, Pete Maravich was survived by his two sons Jaeson, who was 8 years old, and his younger brother, Josh, aged 5. At home, Pete Maravich would take his sons up to the third floor of their home where they would perform the dribbling and shooting drills Pete had learned from his father. Only the previous year, Pete had taken Jaeson to the 1987 NBA All-Star Game in Seattle, Washington and introduced him to Michael Jordan. Since Maravich's children were very young when he died, Jackie Maravich initially shielded them from unwanted media attention, even not allowing Jaeson and Josh to attend their father's funeral.[14] However, a proclivity to basketball seemed to be an inherited trait. During a 2003 interview, Jaeson told USA Today that, when he was still only a toddler, "My dad passed me a (Nerf) basketball, and I've been hooked ever since...My dad said I shot and missed, and I got mad and I kept shooting. He said his dad told him he did the same thing." [15] Despite some setbacks coping with their father's death and without the benefit his tutelage might have provided, each eventually was inspired to play high school and collegiate basketball, Josh at his father's alma mater, LSU. [15] As of 2008, both men had also signed to play professional basketball with the Santa Barbara Breakers (West Coast Basketball League).[16][17] [edit] Honors, books and films
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Categories: 1947 births | 1988 deaths | American basketball players | European American basketball players | Basketball Hall of Fame inductees | Basketball players from Pennsylvania | LSU Tigers basketball players | Sportspeople from Pennsylvania | Serbian Americans | Atlanta Hawks draft picks | Atlanta Hawks players | Boston Celtics players | National Basketball Association players with retired numbers | American evangelicals | New Orleans Jazz players | Utah Jazz players | National Basketball Association broadcasters | American Christians | Deaths from myocardial infarction | People from Baton Rouge, Louisiana | College basketball announcers in the United States | National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame inductees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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