Book Review

Pistol

Mark Kriegel

Pete Maravich was the most dazzling basketball player I have ever seen.

I will always remember when Pistol Pete and his LSU Tigers helped Auburn open its new basketball arena in January of 1969. I was a freshman at Auburn.

Pete scored 47 points that night, but Auburn won the game handily, which tells you something. The LSU basketball team was Pete and four other guys who stood around and watched him just like the people in the stands.

This is a great sports biography of an incredibly talented yet troubled athlete. It is as much a biography of father Press Maravic as it is of Pistol Pete. The two were intertwined like strands of DNA. It comes across as a love-hate thing between them.

Both came out of working class Pittsburgh.

In this book I learned about what a great basketball tactician Press was (although his ability to blend a winning team together was limited) and how he taught John Wooden the high/ low post offense that Coach Wooden used to win 10 national championships.

The LSU basketball program was moribund in 1967 when they hired Press away from West Virgina to put some life into the program. Otherwise, Pistol would have followed Jerry West out of WVU. LSU wanted people in the stands more than winning a championship. They certainly got what they wanted at least as long as Pete was there. (Press was fired shortly after Pete finished his eligibility).

Pete didn't want to go to LSU, but his father insisted in the strongest way. The rest, as they say, is history.

After his father died and after Pete's better than I remembered NBA career (although he never succeeded as he could have because he never played on a good team, and therefore never played on a championship team), he got "weird" in his later years, believing in UFOs and going off the deep end with nutrition opinions.

His was a sad life in the last years before he died from a congenital heart defect at an early age.

If you are interested in Pistol Pete Maravich, this is a book to read and enjoy.