Peter Press Maravich ( MAIR-ə-vitch; June 22, 1947 – January 5, 1988), also known by his nickname "Pistol Pete", was an American professional basketball player.
Maravich starred in college for Louisiana State University's Tigers basketball team, which was coached by his father, Press Maravich. He is the all-time top scorer in NCAA Division I men's basketball, having scored 3,667 points at an average of 44.2 per game. He accomplished this before the adoption of the three-point line and shot clock, and before freshmen were allowed to play varsity by the NCAA.
Maravich was selected by the Atlanta Hawks in the 1970 NBA draft. He played four seasons in Atlanta, then was traded to the expansion New Orleans Jazz, where he spent five seasons and part of a sixth. He played his final part-season for the Boston Celtics, then retired due to injuries. During his 10-year career, he was named an All-Star five times and All-NBA four times.
One of the youngest players inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Maravich was considered among the best ball handlers and creative offensive talents ever to play. He died suddenly at age 40 during a pick-up game in 1988 because of an undetected heart defect. Maravich was named to the NBA's 50th Anniversary team in 1996 and 75th Anniversary team in 2021.
Maravich was born to Peter "Press" Maravich (1915–1987) and Helen Gravor Maravich (1925–1974) in Aliquippa, a steel town in Beaver County in western Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. Maravich amazed his family and friends with his basketball abilities from an early age. He enjoyed a close but demanding father-son relationship that motivated him toward achievement and fame in the sport. Maravich's father was the son of Serbian immigrants and a professional player–turned-coach. He showed his son the fundamentals starting when Pete was seven years old. Obsessively, young Maravich spent hours practicing ball control tricks, passes, head fakes, and long-range shots.
While Maravich was in junior high, his father was head basketball coach at Clemson University. Once a classmate bet Maravich five dollars that he could not spin the ball on his finger for an entire hour. Maravich took the bet, and after his finger began to bleed, switched fingers, winning the five bucks. Once in a game, on a three-on-one fast break, he threw a behind-the-back bounce pass through an opponent's legs to a teammate for a layup. "I think, right then, showtime was born in me," Maravich recalled.
Maravich played high school varsity ball at Daniel High School in Central, South Carolina, a year before being old enough to attend the school. While at Daniel from 1961 to 1963, Maravich participated in the school's first-ever game against a team from an all-black school.
In 1963, his father departed from his position at Clemson and joined the coaching staff at North Carolina State University. While living in Raleigh, North Carolina, Maravich attended Needham B. Broughton High School, where his famous moniker was born. From his habit of shooting the ball from his side, as if holding a revolver, Maravich became known as "Pistol" Pete Maravich. He graduated from Broughton in 1965 and then attended Edwards Military Institute, where he averaged 33 points per game. Press Maravich was known to be extremely protective of Maravich, and would guard against any issue that might come up during his adolescence; Press threatened to shoot Maravich with a .45-caliber pistol if he drank or got into trouble. Maravich was 6 feet 4 inches in high school and was getting ready to play in college when his father took a coaching position at Louisiana State University.
At LSU, Maravich was a member of the Louisiana Epsilon chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. At that time, NCAA rules prohibited first-year students from playing at varsity level, which required Maravich to play on the freshman team. In his first game, Maravich put up 50 points, 14 rebounds, and 11 assists against Southeastern Louisiana College.
In his first varsity game, Maravich scored 48 against Tampa. In just his seventh game, he broke Bob Pettit's SEC scoring record with 58 points against Mississippi State.
In the final game of his junior season, LSU faced Georgia and was down by 15 points. Maravich led a comeback to take the game into overtime. LSU won in overtime, and as Maravich dribbled out the clock, he hoisted a 30-foot hook shot that went in the basket. Georgia's cheerleaders carried Maravich off the court.
In his senior season against Alabama, he scored 69 points in a 106–104 win.
In only three years playing on the varsity team (and under his father's coaching) at LSU, Maravich scored 3,667 points—1,138 of those in 1967–68, 1,148 in 1968–69, and 1,381 in 1969–70—while averaging 43.8, 44.2, and 44.5 points per game, respectively. For his collegiate career, the 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) guard averaged 44.2 points per game in 83 contests and led the NCAA in scoring for each of his three seasons.
Maravich was the NCAA Division I all-time leading scorer among basketball players, until surpassed as such by Caitlin Clark in 2024. Maravich's long-standing collegiate scoring record is particularly notable when three factors are taken into account:
First, because of the NCAA rules that prohibited him from taking part in varsity competition during his first year as a student, Maravich was prevented from adding to his career record for a full quarter of his time at LSU. During this first year, Maravich scored 741 points in freshman competition.
Second, Maravich played before the advent of the three-point line. This significant difference has raised speculation regarding just how much higher his records would be, given his long-range shooting ability and how such a component might have altered his play. Writing for ESPN.com, Bob Carter stated, "Though Maravich played before the 3-point shot was established, he loved gunning from long range." It has been reported that former LSU coach Dale Brown charted every shot Maravich scored and concluded that, if his shots from three-point range had been counted as three points, Maravich's average would have totaled 57 points per game and 12 three-pointers per game.
Third, the shot clock had also not yet been instituted in NCAA play during Maravich's college career. (A time limit on ball possession speeds up play, mandates an additional number of field goal attempts, eliminates stalling, and increases the number of possessions throughout the game, all resulting in higher overall scoring.)
More than 50 years later, however, many of his NCAA and LSU records still stand. Maravich was a three-time All-American. Though he never appeared in the NCAA tournament, Maravich played a key role in turning around a lackluster program that had posted a 3–20 record in the season prior to his arrival. Maravich finished his college career in the 1970 National Invitation Tournament, where LSU finished fourth.