Book Review: PISTOL: The Life of Pete Maravich

http://www.amazon.com/Pistol-Life-M...4415344?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1178494919&sr=8-1

I had picked up this book a month or so ago, and had been plodding through, but after the loss, I decided to finish it to help remember one of the greatest losers of all time.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough. Maravich is one of the least-known and least-understood superstars the NBA has had. NBA players from Magic to Rafer Alston and Chris Paul credit Pete Maravich for paving the way for him. Looking back at his games is like I would imagine seeing Mozart direct a symphony would be like. He brought Showtime to the NBA a full decade before the Lakers won a Championship with it.

The book is as much about Press Maravich as it is Pete. Understanding Press is definitely necessary to understanding Pete. Press was the son of poor immigrants that lived in a Pennsylvania steel town. More than his father, Press coached Pete his entire middle school, high school, and college career. But the book gives another treat by studying Press’s life. It offers a view into the roots of professional basketball. Press played for the Pittsburg Ironmen of the BAA, and he played for several barnstorming teams. He was an extremely well-respected coach that even John Wooden called for advice. John Wooden said Press Maravich was one of the best defensive minds ever (invented the 1-3-1), and was a great visionary for winning with fast break teams before anyone else did. But Pete was special. Press didn’t coach Pete to win games; he coached him to change basketball. Before Pete was strong enough to shoot, he dribbled. He’d dribble all day every day. Sometimes he’d do drills, the most famous was where he’d lay down across the back seat of the car and dribble a ball on the road while Press sped up and slowed down, getting as fast as 30 miles per hour, but even when he was just going through his day, he’d dribble. John Wooden called Press down for it. He told Press, “The kid needs to learn defensive positioning, he dribbles well enough.” Press replied that Pete was going to be a million-dollar player (when that was unheard of). Wooden said, “But he’ll never win.” Oddly, they were both right.

The book really delves into several of the tough challenges that Pete had to put up with, especially having a persona bigger than him, always having to sell basketball, and never really being expected to win. The Pistol Pete persona sold tickets. People came to watch Pistol and not really to watch basketball. He was seen as a White Hope even though he never really wanted it. From LSU to Atlanta to New Orleans, he was an ambassador for basketball. He went to football country and got fans excited about basketball. Here was a player doing things never done at a high professional level before, playing basketball like a Globetrotter exhibition, and he was a white guy. He built two arenas (The Assembly Center in Baton Rouge and the Omni Center in Atlanta) and put 30,000+ fans in the Superdome. When he put on an exhibition, no one cared whether he won or lost. In fact, when he tried to slow down, play within himself and play winning basketball, management told him not to. That’s not to say that he couldn’t win. It just seemed that every time his team put it together they’d win a few games in a row, he’d get hurt. He could follow up a 60 point game with a 20 assist game. One of the best moments was when the Tulane coach watched a lot of tape and noticed a huge tendency to go right. He effectively cut off Maravich’s ability to go to the right. Maravich went left all night for 60 points and a 30 point shellacking of a good Tulane team.

But the weight of the game and the expectations weighed on him. He turned to all sorts of salvations. A true child of the sixties, he would try anything to make him feel better. He tried Buddhism, Hinduism, vegetarianism, martial arts, and alcohol. He believed in aliens and even had a sign on his condo that said “Take Me”. He didn’t just try alcohol; he always used it to escape. Even when he got rid of every bad part of his diet, he still drank a lot. The worst example was when LSU had a chance at the NIT title, was playing a Marquette team that seemed to be much better, and because he had been so beat up, had such close media attention on him, he got hammered the night before the game. Playing with a hangover, he went out and laid an egg, and LSU was beaten badly.

Oddly, when he got a chance to actually win with the Celtics, after his knees were gone and he had lost most of his athleticism, he quit since it would mean that he would have to come off the bench. Being Pistol Pete meant more to him than winning.

The last part of the book concentrates on his conversion to Christianity and ministry, and some readers will find it preachy. But Christianity definitely fulfilled his life like nothing he had tried before. It was what finally gave him peace.

PISTOL was easily the best sports book I’ve read in several years, and probably the best sports biography I’ve ever read. If you like to remember the history of the league, and want to understand how we got here, I highly recommend this book.

 

I guess if I write a book review, I should comment on the style. It's great. Kriegel writing reminds me of a great lecture. It's both interesting and informative. He definitely tries to give all the facts about his career, but he spends more time on anecdotes and stories. He references 317 sources, and he really leaves no stone unturned. He gets a lot from Pete's brother Ronnie, who the family now has nothing to do with, and is a bartender on Bourbon Street. He clearly wants the reader to empathize with Maravich, and you find yourself doing that.