Pete Maravich

Peter Press Maravich was born in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, into a Serbian-American family. Coached obsessively by his father, former collegiate coach Press Maravich, Pete practiced basketball for eight hours every day, dribbling out of car windows, in dark movie theaters, and asleep with the ball in bed. He earned the nickname 'Pistol Pete' from his habit of shooting from the hip like a gunslinger drawing a revolver.

Playing at Louisiana State University (LSU) from 1967 to 1970, Maravich performed offensive miracles that packed arenas across the country. In 83 collegiate games, he scored 3,667 points—an astonishing average of 44.2 points per game, achieved before the adoption of the three-point line or the shot clock (statisticians estimate he would have averaged over 55 points per game with a three-point line). He remains the all-time leading scorer in NCAA Division I history.

Drafted into the NBA by the Atlanta Hawks and later starring for the New Orleans Jazz, Maravich brought playground showmanship to the professional ranks with his trademark floppy grey socks, blind passes, and circus trick shots, winning the 1977 NBA scoring title with 31.1 points per game. In 1974, at age twenty-six, Maravich presciently told a reporter: 'I don't want to play 10 years in the NBA and die of a heart attack at 40.' On 5 January 1988, at age forty, Maravich collapsed and died during a pickup basketball game in Pasadena, California, from an undiagnosed congenital defect (he was born without a left coronary artery).