"Pistol Pete" Maravich

"He (Pete) was an artist. His canvas was the basketball floor and his brush was the basketball."

Former All American and All Pro
Paul Westphal

"It was Magic"
Legendary LSU Superstar “Pistol Pete” Maravich took his swirling basketball magic to paradise 17 years go. Heaven couldn’t wait for showtime. Between the leg dribbles, behind the back passes, dishing the ball off the dribble at full throttle in the blink of an eye, physical acrobatics in getting a shot off…it was magic. It was also instinctive, inventive and incredible.

Maravich pushed basketball to new limits. Consider this: Pistol Pete scored 3,667 points during his LSU collegiate playing career, averaging a staggering 44.2 points per game for 83 varsity college basketball contests. All of this occurred before the advent of the 3 point shot.

It was the kind of show that filled arenas all over the Southeastern Conference. What the SEC saw was a gangly, angular kid who played basketball with a pained expression, with a blend of jazz and classical music, with an apparant air of nonchalance. What he accomplished in college was truly “Ruthian” and will never be matched.

Barry Mendelson

"He Could Have Played Blind"
‘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.’

Bob Dylan
from the first volume of his autobiography “Chronicles”

"He (Pete) was an artist. His canvas was the basketball floor & his brush was the basketball."

Former All American
and All Pro Paul Westphal