Pistol Pete still part of the game

Maravich lives on in Louisiana hoops

NEW ORLEANS -- A couple of years ago, a New Orleans Hornets executive heard about two young men who wanted to see an NBA game. So Willis Reed, who knew the family a bit, did the proper thing: He left tickets for Josh and Jaeson Maravich.

Pistol Pete's boys, taking in a game with the Captain. That's about as historical as hoops gets down here, where the game teaches everyone an instant altruism: In Louisiana, black or white -- old or young -- once you have the bayou and basketball in common, few barriers remain.

"There was such a mystique around their father," Reed said this weekend of Maravich. "I so loved to watch him play. Wouldn't it be great to have a Maravich in our sport now? Those saggy socks. That hair. The showmanship."

The memory of Maravich was feted at Sunday's ninth annual NBA Legends brunch, for Jackie Maravich, her sons and the creative basketball genius who died suddenly of a heart defect in 1988.

"I remember Pete tellin' me, 'When you die, people forget you,' " said Jackie Maravich his widow. "I mean, he's more alive today than ever. He kind of reminds me of Elvis Presley, the way people see him now. He had such an impact on and off the court."

Maravich played two seasons at Raleigh's Broughton High. His father, Press Maravich, was the coach at N.C. State and later coached Pete at Louisiana State.

Pete Maravich has been honored posthumously almost more than he was in his 40 years. If he had a supernova's burst of brilliance, his life story has an infinite quality to it. Mark Kriegel's rich 2007 biography, "Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich," is out in paperback.

Josh, 25, helps his mother run the company that still markets Pete's instructional videos to catalog companies and has operated a basketball camp for 24 years. Jaeson, 29, works as a personal trainer, specializing in basketball, at a high-end health club here.

Jackie lives in the 2 1/2-story Victorian home where she and her husband raised their two boys in Covington, La. The boys were just 5 and 8 when their father died.

"To see and hear my kids talk about their dad, hear so many things from so many different people, it makes you proud," Jackie said. "You always think what could have been, but that's not what God had planned."

With the NBA and its corporate partners descending on Pistol Pete's old playground this weekend, the spotlight has shone on not only the legend of Maravich, but also on a state's rich basketball treasures. The bayou takes its ball seriously. Shaquille O'Neal, Reed and Joe Dumars were chosen to the state's all-century college team -- make that the second team.

Yes, not even an LSU freak-of-nature phenomenon or two small-college legends -- who each won two NBA championships -- could crack a starting five of Maravich, Bob Pettit, Robert Parish, Karl Malone and that Ragin' Cajun, Dwight "Bo" Lamar, the three-time all-American at Southwestern Louisiana.

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. Calvin Natt. Andrew Toney. Bob Love. Larry Wright.

Then there are kids who moved away, such as Antawn Jamison, the Washington Wizards' All-Star forward. Jamison was 13 when his father moved the family from Shreveport to Charlotte after Hurricane Hugo created lots of construction jobs in North Carolina.

Bill Russell left Monroe, La., when he was 8. His father who moved the family to Oakland, Calif., did not want his children to grow up in, at the time, an intense environment of racism.

Some of the state's biggest basketball names remember better players who never made it to the NBA -- such as Benny Anders, a star on Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler's University of Houston "Phi Slamma Jamma" teams.

"You want to know a great player?" Jamison asked rhetorically. "Snapper. I never knew his real name, but he lived right next door to me. About six years older, probably 15 or 16. Had this nice jump shot. Ruled the playground. I could never beat Snapper."

"You got to put Bob Hopkins in there," Aaron James said of the Grambling great. "Oh, you got to put Aaron James in there, too."

James starred at Grambling and played five seasons with the New Orleans Jazz. He calls his late teammate "Peter" because at the end of his life, the born-again Maravich embraced his biblical name.

"I still remember Peter when I was a rookie with the Jazz and we lived in the same area," James said. "I had this old Volkswagen Beetle and he had a Porsche Carrera. After practice, he would tell me, 'Hey, rook, get your car.' He would give me a five-minute head start. I'd be gunnin' it, and all of a sudden you just hear this WOOP. He would fly past. We called him 'Speed Racer.' "

Maravich averaged 44.2 points per game at LSU and became the most improvisational, freewheeling player the NBA had known until his retirement in 1980. His passes were thought to be apparitions at the time.

Aaron James and Jackie Maravich speak often. In earnest, James says, "He might not be here, but he is still here -- you know what I mean?"