Courtside with Marc

Wayne Federman: The Real Reason Pistol Pete Died at 40 Will Shock You

• Marc Israel • Season 1 • Episode 11

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0:00 | 55:19

Wayne Federman reveals the shocking medical discovery about Pistol Pete Maravich that changed everything.

Wayne Federman, authorized biographer of Pete Maravich, spent 20 years researching the life of basketball's most tragic genius. From Pete's impossible 44.2 points per game average at LSU (with no 3-point line) to the shocking autopsy discovery that he was missing his left coronary artery, this conversation reveals untold stories from unprecedented access to Pete's personal diaries and family materials.

Key topics covered: • Pete's revolutionary training methods that influenced today's NBA stars like Curry and Kyrie Irving • The million-dollar contract controversy that fractured the Atlanta Hawks locker room • How getting cut from high school basketball led Wayne to comedy and eventually to Hollywood • Marc's childhood Pete Maravich obsession and the legendary desk covered in 50-year-old box scores

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SPEAKER_03

Eventually, after the thing, they do an autopsy. Find out he's missing his left coronary artery.

SPEAKER_00

That thing.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, just this medical miracle. Could have died at age 17. Like by a thread the whole time.

SPEAKER_00

Hello and welcome to Courtside on the Road. And today we've taken our show to the famed Warner Brothers studio.

SPEAKER_03

Not Courtside, though.

SPEAKER_00

No, not it's not actually Courtside. I don't know where we could get a game in over here, but it's pretty cool to be on the on the Warner Brothers lot.

SPEAKER_03

One of the, you know, this is where they invented the sound stage.

SPEAKER_00

Is that right?

SPEAKER_03

This is the very first one. It was right over here, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, we would invented sound movies.

SPEAKER_00

Who did the Warner Brothers?

SPEAKER_03

I don't know if you're familiar with the Jazz Singer from 1927.

SPEAKER_00

Tell me maybe I should introduce you first and then you can tell me. Let's do it. So the guy who's now going to educate us about the Jazz Singer in 1927 is my friend Wayne Fetterman. You bet twice. That's it. What's that? I love it. A very dear friend. We've known each other about 15 minutes. Um, but I could tell it's going to be a lifelong relationship. Wayne Fetterman, who is an actor. Stand-up comedian. Okay. Documentary filmmaker.

SPEAKER_03

Producer. Yes. Producer, my bad, man.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Author. Yeah. And I think we and I think we can do this. Yeah. Author of the book, a an authorized biography of the great pistol Pete Maravich, who some of you know I'm completely obsessed with. I love it. Not the book. I mean, I am obsessed with the book, but I mean I'm obsessed with Pistol. Uh stand-up comedian performed all over the country. Uh a regular recurring character on Curb Your Your Enthusiasm. Right. Dude, that's that's like when you've seen the movie Step Brothers? Yes, of course.

SPEAKER_03

I'm in that movie. I'm in that movie. Stepbrothers.

SPEAKER_00

You were in you were in Sweetwater with that. Of course. That markers. Great Sweetwater, yeah. Yeah. You played a ref or something?

SPEAKER_03

Referee, yes. Referee. Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

And um I mean, you've done everything. I don't know when you said. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03

It's not everything, obviously, but I do I do do I like doing a number of things. Like that's my I don't know about you. I don't even you do real estate.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it doesn't matter what I do. Podcasting? Yes, I also do a lot of different things. And I did and I just spent a couple of years doing stand-up comedy too, man.

SPEAKER_01

Where were you live with their remote?

SPEAKER_00

Funny bone in Knoxville, Tennessee. Yes, yeah. I used to play the funny bones in in uh do you remember the funny bones? Of course. Knoxville. I played Columbus, Ohio. Wiley's Comedy Club in Dayton, Ohio. You know these places? Charlie Charlie Goodnight.

SPEAKER_03

You don't probably know what the meeting is. Not only do stand-up comedy, but I wrote the history of stand-up comedy from Mark Twain to Dave Chappelle.

SPEAKER_00

I do know that. I saw that book. I think you left me out. I don't see my I didn't see my name anywhere.

SPEAKER_03

I don't know if you raise you got to the level of a Richard Pryor, but uh maybe I'm my scholarship's off.

SPEAKER_00

There you go. And you also and you're and you also teach stand-up comedy at USC.

SPEAKER_03

Teach the history of stand-up at USC. Pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00

So so seriously, that's that's a lot of that's cool. You have a lot of a lot of reasons. It's nice to meet you.

SPEAKER_03

I'd heard about you because we have a mutual friend, and yeah, so it's nice to meet you. Thank you for having me on the famous podcast. There you go, man. Courtside.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, courtside with Mark. With Mark. That's it. That's it. And it it the podcast is is famous, but once we Why is it famous? Well well, once we have Fetterman on, it'll just get to another level of fame, right? It just sort of it'll step up another.

SPEAKER_03

I guess a loose term famous. Right.

SPEAKER_00

So that was the ass-kissing part of the show. So let's let's let's talk a little bit about um anything you want to talk about. But this is a this is a a a hoops related, a basketball-related.

SPEAKER_03

I got the ball right now. You brought the ball with you. This is in the my car.

SPEAKER_00

Is that that's your actual that's the basketball?

SPEAKER_03

I will I play every Saturday, outdoors, in converse, full court.

SPEAKER_00

Wow. You in converse?

SPEAKER_03

You haven't in the converse, in the Chuck Taylors.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that you haven't twisted an ankle. I mean, those are sort of like throwback 1970s. They work for you.

SPEAKER_03

They work for me.

SPEAKER_00

Is that and so we we do have a we do have a really good mutual friend, Howie, who is is that the game that Howie tells us? No, no, Howie's not. You don't play in Howie's game. Okay.

SPEAKER_03

No, I do play with Howie, but he can't do full court.

SPEAKER_00

He can't do what you do.

SPEAKER_03

So but you but the ball's always in your car if you always just in case I see a court, like I'm driving around, I see a basketball court, I pull over, work on my shot, work on my release, work on my guide hand. I'm always perfecting the shot.

SPEAKER_00

That's unbelievable. Were you a hoops player growing up?

SPEAKER_03

Unfortunately, I was, but I wasn't good enough to make the high school team. One of the reasons I went into like drama and comedy was like, I feel like that that huge disappointment of they posted the list, you got cut name was not on it.

SPEAKER_00

Really? You double checked to sure it wasn't something.

SPEAKER_03

Was it starting me just to talk about it? Yeah, I'm sorry. I yeah, I don't know. No, I want to. I want to. I want this to be real.

SPEAKER_00

This isn't therapy. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to have to bring up these, you know, sort of these these difficult.

SPEAKER_03

To process it, yeah. Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I would hope you'll process it by this point, you know.

SPEAKER_03

But anyway, but I've been I am a hoop lifer. Watched it as a kid, played it, as played it my play it my whole life. Where'd you grow up? Couple places. Okay. Two different places. Okay. First, Silver Spring, Maryland. Okay. Are you familiar with that?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, outside of DC. Sure.

SPEAKER_03

Suburb. Yeah. And then moved to a place unfortunately called Plantation, Florida.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Why is it you mean the unfortunate name Plantation?

SPEAKER_03

Maybe the most racially insensitive name for a city in the country. I'm surprised it hasn't. Yeah, there's no like concentration camp New Jersey. That's true. That I know of. Yeah, no, that there should not be. There should not be something like that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'm surprised that somebody hasn't come in and changed the name. They will not. Oh, there's no way.

SPEAKER_03

They won't have it down there. So when I asked you So uh so plantation and Silver Spring, the first basket I ever made was at the YMCA and Silver Spring, Maryland off Colesville Road. I still remember the shot.

SPEAKER_00

Really? Yeah. What just just a jump shot or or no, not a jump shot.

SPEAKER_03

Just kind of like a push shot. You know, a little kid. I might have been nine.

SPEAKER_00

Did you grow and did you grow up? Uh were you a basketball fan in in Maryland? Were you a DC were you a Washington Bullets fan then?

SPEAKER_03

Before I'm so old, Baltimore Bullets.

SPEAKER_00

Baltimore Bullets. So tell uh place me in that time. Jack Marin, uh Earl Earl the Bulls.

SPEAKER_03

Earl Monroe West Uncell.

SPEAKER_00

The great West Unsell.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it was a very good team. They we got killed by the Knicks every year. Right. And this is the thing is which really soured me on professional sports as a child was when Earl Munro went to the Knicks. Right. I was like, this is our what's going on? Right. This is a lot, our best player is allowed to go to our arch rival. And I was like, yeah. So I I don't really have a team since then. There's no, I just follow the association.

SPEAKER_00

But you've lived in LA for many, many years.

SPEAKER_03

And I'm not a Lakers fan.

SPEAKER_00

And you're not why are you?

SPEAKER_03

I'm not a Laker. I mean, I go to Lakers games, obviously, I go to Clipper Games, but they're not like that's not my team. I'm more into the association. All the players, all the things since that moment. Thank you for bringing it up. A lot of therapy here.

SPEAKER_00

No, this is good. And by the way, we don't have a box of tissues, but if we if we want, we'll use the pillow.

SPEAKER_03

I'll cry into the pillow.

SPEAKER_00

So the bullets, by the way, you speak about plantation. I mean, the bullets, that also was a uh a politically not correct name. Yeah, right. So they they got smart.

SPEAKER_03

And a friend of mine is a comedian used to do the joke. He used to say, he's like, I feel like you can dodge a bullet, but if a wizard puts a curse on you, it's a like it's worse to be a wizard than to be a bullet.

SPEAKER_00

Right, but I guess it was not politically correct to be a bullet. Um, and maybe not politically correct to live in plantation, Florida, although now we're gonna get hate from from the people.

SPEAKER_03

Here's the crazy thing. I love plant, I love growing up in plantation. It was really a wonderful place to grow up. So, I mean, you're outdoors all the time in Florida.

SPEAKER_00

So when when the great Earl the Pearl gets traded to the Knicks, yeah, I've never talked about this on a podcast. No, well, let's talk about it. So, first of all, from the Knicks perspective, um it it was a shocking and sort of groundbreaking trade that most people didn't think was gonna were gonna work, right? Was gonna work. The concept being that I knew it was gonna work right away. That there are not enough basketballs for Clyde and the Pearl, but you knew better.

SPEAKER_03

That's just again, most idiotic sports writers who don't know what they're talking about. But you knew you knew I had seen Earl play. I mean, I never saw him when he was at Winston-Salem, but think that guy was a he was a great team player.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, the great he played for the great played for the the great Clarence Big House Games at Winston.

SPEAKER_03

So this is some deep this is going to expand your podcast talking about big house games.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so you know, we got it. It's just a it's just a great nickname, man. Big house. Yeah, yeah. Big house. I mean, that's such a cool, cool name.

SPEAKER_03

And the footage, the footage of Earl playing winning that championship is incredible. His ball handling skills are wild. Unbelievable. And also, I've there's some footage I uncovered of him playing in Philadelphia in that league, the Baker League. Have you ever heard of that? Not the Rucker, right? No, Baker. Right. Same number of syllables, both N and R. The Baker. Yeah, he was. That's where he got his name, Black Jesus, if I'm not mistaken.

SPEAKER_00

That's an incredible thing.

SPEAKER_03

This is this is the deep dive dive dive court side. Is this too deep? No. You can tell me, I can swim up.

SPEAKER_00

Dude, no, dude, let's go deeper. I can't really imagine, by the way, yeah, as a Jewish kid from Long Island, I can't really imagine a cooler nickname to have than Black Jesus. I mean, how cool is that? And he had two great nicknames, right? Earl the Pearl the Pearl and Black and Black Jesus. That's a pretty special guy.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah. He loved Pete Maravich, by the way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It's unbelievable. And and and and you know, talking about guys who do things that had never been seen before. Let's talk about pistol Pete Maravit. So so so get let's get the fact out there. You've written a book, a, or you wrote a book. I wrote a book.

SPEAKER_03

Wrote a book, and it's been almost 20 years now of the authorized biography of Pete Maravich. Meaning authorized, meaning that you had you you spoke with his family and not only cooperated with his family, so we went to his house, which is in Covington, uh, Louisiana, and she gave us, I don't know why, but myself and Marshall, I co-wrote it with uh Marshall Terrell, as the access to his personal diaries, his day runner, photos, letters he wrote the kids. It was just I I was literally overwhelmed. And right, I was just at the end of the book. I write, I hope this book is a reflection of like not only our affection uh and of for Pete Maravich, but you know, the trust. Because you have to trust, and she trusted me. So I'm forever indebted, and it's a thick book. It's like it's a really in-depth story of his whole journey, which was an incredible journey.

SPEAKER_00

And but let's tie it back a little bit, right? So you you grow up in a tie back. Yeah, okay. You grew up at Silver Springs, Earl of the Pearl, Earl of the Pearl gets traded to the Knicks, you know, which sort of destroys your life, which you're apparently still suffering from this day. Therapy will help, but I'm not the guy to do that.

SPEAKER_03

But let me say these scars you can't see, but they're deep. Deep, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I see a couple, but like Oh, you do? No, but that might just be, you know, skincare or something like that. But um, but the the but Earl of the Pearl goes to New York and that leaves a scar in you, and you live in plantation, Florida. But like, so where did where did the interest or maybe go? Well, again, I'm a basketball lifer. Okay.

SPEAKER_03

So we started hearing about Pete Maravich when he's at LSU, right? And putting up these car only can be described as cartoonish numbers every every time. And just year after year. But the crazy thing, when I people are always like, well, he was obviously a gunner, and that is true. He played for his dad, he had the ultimate green light. But that was the era of a lot of high-scoring people in college basketball. Right. They had uh Rick Mount, I don't know if you remember him. Kentucky?

SPEAKER_00

Oh no, Indiana.

SPEAKER_03

Purdue, I think.

SPEAKER_00

Purdue, excuse me, Purdue.

SPEAKER_03

Purdue is the same as Kentucky, if you want to be wrong.

SPEAKER_00

It's in Indiana, yeah. Yeah. I just pissed off a lot of a lot of people in uh still big deal in Indiana.

SPEAKER_03

But and then obviously Calvin Murphy, who you're I assume, buddies with them.

SPEAKER_00

Do you talk to him about Pistol? I do. I will tell you something that when I was um when I was growing up, I had two favorite players, um, Calvin Murphy and Pistol Peach. What? Right, Calvin Murphy, Pistol Peach. And I and and I'll sort of tie this back to something I spoke to Calvin about. So Calvin, you know, I'm sitting down here, I don't know what I look like on on the video, but I'm a short guy, right? I was always the shortest guy in my class, always the littlest guy in my class. Calvin was the littlest guy in the NBA, and he was badass, right? He was just the greatest, toughest 5'9. I wish I was 5'9.

SPEAKER_03

Niagara, right?

SPEAKER_00

Niagara University. Grew up in in uh uh Norwalk, Connecticut, um, and uh went to Niagara and got drafted by the San Diego Rockets, which is by the way, I'll tell you a little cool thing there. The San Diego Rockets were called the San Diego Rockets because at that time in the early 60s, San Diego was trying to be like this aerospace um city. So they named the team the Rockets.

SPEAKER_03

After a couple of years, the Because of defense contracts and stuff.

SPEAKER_00

After a couple of years, it it didn't work out, and they moved the team to Houston, where they had NASA, and they just keep playing the Rockets. So but I when I when I met Houston, we have a problem. Well, Houston, we have a problem. So when I met uh Calvin Murphy uh for the first time last year, I just told him the same story I just told you, right? That he was always my favorite player. And I said, My other favorite player, I started to say to him, was Pistol Pete Maravich, and he cut me off. He said he loved Pistol Pete, they were dear friends, that they were the exact same age, they were the same draft class, by the way. Yeah, that draft class, 1970, I believe, has the most players in the NBA Hall of Fame. There might be another class around 2006, but Pistol Pete, Bob Lanier, Rudy Tomjanovich, uh Cowans, Dave Cowens, right? They're all in all in the Hall of Fame. And Calvin told me some really beautiful stories about about Pete. Um, both first of all, he said he competed against him in in AAU, and then in college, and then in um the pros, obviously, and told me some beautiful stories about about him and Pete, you know, right before Pete died. So yeah, so uh Calvin was is Wait, he said he competed against him in college? Well, they were rivals in college. I don't mean that they play I don't mean that they played against each other, but they were rivals. They were both no cushion big big scoring titles.

SPEAKER_03

Do you remember this at all?

SPEAKER_00

Tell me who the 3Ms are.

SPEAKER_03

Rick Mount, Calvin Murphy, Pete Maravich. And they were battling for the scoring titles. Right, for that especially in '69. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Those those are the stories. That's what I meant by competing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so and and so so, yeah, talk about some of the the cartoonish numbers. You you know the stats, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, but here's an interesting stat, just to bring it up to date. So if anyone is there's only four people in the history of basketball who have led the NBA and college basketball in scoring. Can you name them? You're a basketball kid. One of them is Pete. So we're not. Right.

SPEAKER_00

So I got I got one so far. Yeah. Um David Thompson? I'm not gonna get this. There's no way I'm gonna get this. Kareem? These are all bad guesses. Yeah, I know they are, man. So, you know, we only have 45 minutes of podcast. I could guess for like 44 minutes. So I guess you're gonna have to tell me who are the other three.

SPEAKER_03

Well, one of them was Stephen Curry. You may have heard of him. He played at Davidson and then went over to Golden State. He's done pretty well for himself.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. He led the he led the the the country in scoring at Davidson and obviously in the NBA. Okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, but only recently, in the last few years, did he was he able to lead the so it's a very difficult thing to do.

SPEAKER_00

Who but well now tell me the other two, because otherwise.

SPEAKER_03

The other was a guy from Miami, played at Miami, is the hint. And also played in the ABA where he led the league in Rick Barry. You might have heard of him.

SPEAKER_00

Of course, the Rick Rick Barry or the hand free thrower.

SPEAKER_03

And the third one, I believe, played for oh, blanking on the college, he played for, but it's uh Paul Arizon. Okay. A little before my time. I never saw him play. That's it. Those are the four people that have done it.

SPEAKER_00

I believe Pete, I think Pete averaged 44 and change.

SPEAKER_03

44.2 and dollar.

SPEAKER_00

With no three-point line.

SPEAKER_03

Correct.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

Not only no three-point line, no 45 second clock or 35 second clock. So people could slow it down. I don't know if you remember the four corners.

SPEAKER_00

Sure, the famous Dean Smith four corners just hold the ball for minutes on end. Yeah. And and and win the game that way.

SPEAKER_03

So so without, yes, uh, without a three-point shot seems impossible. Yeah, it is really 44 points. That means if he scored 42 points in a game, which would be most dreamed night for most college players, he heard his average.

SPEAKER_00

That's that's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_03

He actually heard his his average.

SPEAKER_00

That's incredible. And I and I don't know the number, you'll probably know the number. Uh-oh. The no, the the total amount of points that he scored a body by.

SPEAKER_03

But in only three years. Yes, in only three years, because freshmen, do you say it? Fill it in.

SPEAKER_00

There was the freshmen couldn't play on on uh they could play, but they were ineligible.

SPEAKER_03

They were ineligible, right?

SPEAKER_00

So there was there was a JV team in in those days, right?

SPEAKER_03

Well, it was just a freshman. Just a just a freshman team that he so if you had and again, it's just ridiculous the numbers. I mean, people just go, what was going on? Was uh the it was like the we were just talking to. Right. Uh it was get the ball to Pete and let him do his thing. And but it the crazy thing is about Pete Maravich, I mean there's so much, I mean obviously I've filled an entire book with it, is that even though he played scored all those points at 44, that he's really more known for his creativity in passing and dribbling than in shooting.

SPEAKER_00

That's incredible. Incredible. So he played with a a um a a style and and a and a flair and a creativity that really didn't exist at the time, right?

SPEAKER_03

Oh no. I mean, uh it did exist a little bit. I mean, maybe, you know, on in street games, obviously Earl Munro was very flashy. There was Pop Kuzie was flashy. There was even, you know, there's always been who was that guy in uh played for the Lakers, later became an Okay, I'll just Rod Huntley. West Virginia. Right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

He played with Pat Riley West Virginia.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, he also was like a flashy kind of. So it's not like it was unheard of what he was doing. And there was the Globetrotter. So people had seen this. They had just never seen someone play Globetrotter style in an actual competitive game.

SPEAKER_00

And and it goes back a little earlier, as you say. You know, his father, Presmaravic, was really was was um one of the guys in in the founding days of what became the NBA, played in the league that Pittsburgh Ironman played for the very first league. Tell us about it, man.

SPEAKER_03

Well, it's I mean, you know, before this is the little trick the NBA does where they have their starting year as 1946-47, but there was no such thing as the NBA in those years. There was something called the Basketball Association of America, the BAA. Okay. Not as good as NBA, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but still cool. The name it works.

SPEAKER_03

And so they eventually took the stats from those three years and then applied them to the NBA.

SPEAKER_00

And Press Maravitch was a very good thing.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and then became a lifetime basketball coach and got his big got his big paycheck when they brought him to Louisiana to coach his kid. It was a package deal. They had to bring, he had to bring his kid, right? Otherwise, he wouldn't get the deal. How about that? That's pretty much. Just imagine that as your dad. You're like, hey, we have a great offer for you.

SPEAKER_00

The kid's got to come.

SPEAKER_03

Not the way the wizard over here who practices eight hours a day. Yeah, we need him.

SPEAKER_00

It's pretty mind-boggling, right?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, he was a parade, Pete was a parade all-American. So he was already starting to like, people are starting to hear about his legend.

SPEAKER_00

And and and the and the legend really goes back to press because so so when Pete becomes Pete that we're talking about, and the and the pistol and the LSU.

SPEAKER_03

Right, and he has this phenomenal. I know you think uh Black Jesus is the greatest in the case. I think pistol is a pretty good for somebody scoring 44 points.

SPEAKER_00

That's a pretty great name. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And it was and when he was in the pros, they put it on the back of his jersey.

SPEAKER_00

They did. He had he his jerseys had pistol. Which by the way, with Can you imagine? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Like it was just, he was like a legend while he was playing. It's crazy. While he was playing.

SPEAKER_00

It's as if KD's jersey just said KD on the back, right? Or something like that. So But when when he be when he becomes really famous at LSG, and then later, um obviously in the NBA, the tricks and and the the crazy ball handling things.

SPEAKER_03

Well, this was a it was a it was a dual edged sword. Right. Fans loved it, but basketball purists were like, This isn't helping the game. We don't want this is not what we're about. We're about fundamentals, even though he was obviously well versed in fundamentals. So he got a lot of criticism, especially in nineteen sixty-nine, when an sports illustrated cover story came out, written by Curry Kirkpatrick, where he said that and the title of the sh article was I Wanna Put on a Show. I feel like that article really cast a blanket over his entire career. Yes. Because everyone, whenever he didn't win, it was like, oh, this is the guy who just wants to put on a show. And it was like that was just part of the article. So he had that reputation. And he described it, and we have to say it in the book, that it's like uh when you have a reputation, it's like uh cutting open a pillow from the top of the Empire State building that you can never get those feathers back in.

SPEAKER_00

Wow, that's his quote, I think. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I mean I'm paraphrasing, but but he so he lived with this sort of um pressure and this kind of a sadness that he he wasn't totally embraced for what he was doing the way he is now. Right. When while he was and I remember it. I I mean I was a kid following him, you know, as as well as other players. But so interesting, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it it yeah, it there's a sadness to it. And if and if you know if you know Pete's life, you did and you do know Pete's life. I mean, there was there was a sadness that that followed him throughout his life, and and um oh yeah, while he was doing these incredible things on the court and things that nobody had ever seen before, he was really suffering. And he and struggled, right? He struggled with with drinking and he struggled with depression, and he and he you know, and don't forget his mom. His mom committed suicide in 74. So But but you know, it's it's interesting though. I want to go back to a little bit of of the of uh what he called basketball homework, I think is what they eventually called it, right? So his father, Presmaravic, designed all of these unbelievable drills, dribbling, you know, mostly dribbling and passing drills.

SPEAKER_03

By the way, no no defense. That wasn't with never no drills on defense, right? It was all about it was all about um it was ball handling, passing, and dribbling and shooting.

SPEAKER_00

Right. So so Press had the father, Press Maravic, had um designed all of these drills. Incredible stuff, right? You know, one of the most famous ones being right, he he he would drive the car and Pete would have to dribble the ball outside the the car window while the car was going, and press would go five miles an hour, ten miles an hour, fifty miles an hour, twenty miles an hour. That's mind-blowing stuff, right? You know.

SPEAKER_03

He wanted he wanted the ball, this thing, to be part of Pete's hand. He wanted it to be so in a game under pressure that he wouldn't have to think about where his fingers were on the ball.

SPEAKER_00

So for a guy like me, who and I'll tell you where my obsession with pistol piece starts, but let's make it let's make it about you.

SPEAKER_03

Let's go. Well, that's it's my podcast.

SPEAKER_00

It's your podcast. Let's do it. Of course. So in in in um, you know, a guy who who so you and I are talking about him a lot, but I think if we talk to an average fan, they don't necessarily know that much about him. Last year I saw an amazing video circulating um of Peyton Pritchard, plays for plays for the Celtics, really talented ball player, where he's doing all this stuff in the garage. In the garage. I've seen it. Incredible video of him doing all this amazing stuff in this garage. It's kind of crazy. He rolls up the garage and there's like there's like cans of paint and stuff in the garage.

SPEAKER_03

But you would think an NBA player would live in some mansion.

SPEAKER_00

It's like a little he's got the same crappy, shitty garage stuff that I have in my in my garage, doing unbelievable dribbling stuff, mind-blowing stuff that Peyton Pritchard is doing. He's he's dribbling where the ball's like a fraction of an inch off of the floor. Deserves all the props. He deserves all the credit for that. But what he was doing in 2025, Pete was doing in 1965, right? 60 years earlier. And whether Peyton Pritchard knows it, and I don't know Peyton Pritchard, I'm sure he's an amazing dude. Whether he knows it or not, that was all a direct, he's a direct descendant of what of what Pistol was doing, right? Kyrie Irving. Perfect example.

SPEAKER_03

He's a great example. Again, why you have the podcast now? Dude, you know, finally, finally, again. It took a while. We're at 25 minutes into it.

SPEAKER_00

Um I also read your book, you know.

SPEAKER_03

So I I got all the I got Yeah, no question, no, no question. And as people, they call it now your bag. Do you know what that is? You're gonna tell me. Well, your bag is your number of moves and counter moves that you use to score a basket. Right. So now that that is something that fans enjoy and that kind of gets celebrated is a lot of it is comes from this repetition of these skills that you have to learn. The Peyton, the Peyton picture. So uh or or Kyrie or Steph Curry or any of these dudes that just methodically practice. Can I say one other skill that I think Pete Merovich had? Yep, which was I think he had an uncommon aptitude for repetitive practice.

SPEAKER_00

Interesting. Explain explain to me what you mean by that and why you think that, you know.

SPEAKER_03

Well, obviously, I mean, just think about it. I mean, most people you get bored doing these things over and over again. And I feel like that is a talent. Not just his natural gifts, but like the talent to repetitively drill your hour after hour after hour to do these drills until they're perfected uh and secondhand. I feel like is a talent in itself.

SPEAKER_00

I think that's true. I mean, look, look at that.

SPEAKER_03

It's just a theory, I have.

SPEAKER_00

No, it's a good theory. Look, Malcolm Gladwell talks about it, right? The ten thousand the 10,000 hours to become an expert in anything. Talks about the Beatles playing over and over and over and over and over again in the clubs in Berlin.

SPEAKER_03

Mainly with Pete Best.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Mainly with Pete Best, right. Yes.

SPEAKER_03

Hamburg it was, by the way.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's not a knock on Ringo Star. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_03

I'm saying it wasn't in Berlin. It was like Hamburg, by band.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Cavern Club or something, right? That's Hamburg. That was in Liverpool. It's all right. We're doing Beatles. We can do it. I know my Pete Maravitch stuff. I don't know my Pete Markets. You don't know your Beatles. I mean, I think I do, but apparently not. So by the way, I'm the corrector. No, but you're a professor. Yeah. You know, um, I'm glad I never took one of your classes. But but I think that's tough but fair. No, tough but fair. That's right. All A-'s. So I a couple B pluses thrown in there. So I think that I think, look, I think you by the way, you make a great point, right?

SPEAKER_03

Do you agree with that?

SPEAKER_00

No, but because I agree with you, and I'll and I'll say why what I think what I think is like I think the average, regular, talented, successful person will work really hard at their craft, but but to get to that level of, like you said, repetition, of doing the same thing over and over and over and over again, most of us, 99.99999% of us are never gonna get to that point. Yeah. So it's it's you so your point.

SPEAKER_03

That's why when I watch Steph Curry, I often think about pistol, because he does that pregame routine. Every game. Yes. You would think after 800 games, nine, I don't know how many games he's played now. It's gotta be over a thousand.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, over a thousand, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

You would think at one point it'd be like, I think I got this. And by and by the way, and and to I mean, it's a whole thing with two balls and dang and dribbling.

SPEAKER_00

And you know, and the shots from half court and and from the and from the tunnel. And and that's your point, by the way. It's now become entertainment. We all go out and we see it, we get there early, we gotta see. But the stess, and he knows it's entertainment now, but that's not why he's doing it. He's doing that because that's the routine that he honed at some point in his career that has turned him into the player that he is.

SPEAKER_03

And uh again, he's one of the most magnificent things I've ever seen on a basketball court.

SPEAKER_00

It's it's it's incredible. Um, so so Pete had that level of of dedication, right? And and an obsession. So, as I said, he's a he's a superstar schoolboy player. He was uh in in in uh North Carolina, right? Because his father was coaching at NC State at some point. Um, and then they get this crazy package deal. Hey, we'd love you to coach uh LSU, but you gotta bring the kid along. Um and really transforms L turns LSU, which is a you know permanently a great football school, turns them into a a basketball school. Fast forward many years later, Shaq and others, you know, go there. But before that, you know, basketball was nothing at LSU.

SPEAKER_03

Well, a little that's not completely true. There was uh they had a they had like a flashy guy in the 40s, and obviously Bob Pettett was one of the greatest of all time. So so Pete gets drafted in the But yes, they played in the basketball was in a converted rodeo barn called the Cow Palace.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And now and now if you go to an LSU basketball game, it's called the arena's called the Pete Meravich Assembly Center or something like that.

SPEAKER_03

It's you know PMAC?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, they call it P Mac, you know, the Pete Pete Maravich uh uh Assembly Center. And if you go there, and I just made a pilgrimage there recently. They have the statue. Did you see that? How's it looked it looks incredible? It's Pete Scott, it's it's he's got uh he's got the hand behind the back about to do some crazy behind the back pass. He's got his long hair flopping, he's got his floppy socks, you know.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, very signature look.

SPEAKER_00

You know, I think for me, you know, growing up, there would there was a there was a little bit of a counterculture hippie sort of a vibe to to Pete and I and I identified with that as a well he was very much in the mold of Joe Namath. Yes, very similar, right?

SPEAKER_03

Very similar guy, like, oh, who is this? Yep. This is an athlete, no crew cut, like uh yeah, grow your hair long, you know, you know, be an individual, yep, celebrate your individualism.

SPEAKER_00

And and he he really did. And um yeah, but when he gets to the NBA, like you said, he wasn't really welcomed with open arms. He had some rights.

SPEAKER_03

Well, the fans did.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, but talk about talk about some of the teammates, you know, and some of the issues he had.

SPEAKER_03

Well, he had trouble with the, you know, he goes to unfortunately goes to the Atlanta Hawks in the Deep South, and they were a good team. They were a really good team. And one of their glue guys, their Draymond Green, right, was this guy called Joe Caldwell. Right. This was like he could jump out of the building. Jump in Joe Caldwell, right? He could jump out of the building, hustle, fans loved him, and they gave Pete like more money, like everyone's struggling to make fifty thousand dollars or something like that. And they gave Pete this million-dollar contract, he was making two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, or two hundred thousand. And so Joe Caldwell was like, Well, I've been here, I've been doing great. I you know, I I part of this. You're gonna have to give me a dollar more than Pete Merovich, or I'm gonna jump to the ABA. And because there was a team in Carolina that wanted them. Uh so he jumped. So that already fractured the team. Amazing. Like, and he's making five times as much money as everyone else on the team.

SPEAKER_00

And it was widely talked about, right? I'm gonna get I'm gonna get the million-dollar contract. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And he signs endorsement deals. Right. So it seems like, oh, friggin' white kid. He's getting he's doing the uh vitalis commercial with the hair and the the uh the basketball commercial and the the shoe, the kids' shoes. So it it was very and so he didn't know what to do. He was like, I I don't know, only know how to play this brand of basketball. And it took him a while to fit in with the the teams, and there was uh you know, there was just resentment. And he tried to like he would buy the teammates meals and they would be like, Oh, you're throwing your money around. And then if he didn't, he was like, Oh, you're cheap. And you know, and he was getting all kinds of perks to play in Atlanta, he got a car, like stuff. They had they were begging to to to make, you know, six fifty-eight thousand dollars a year. So it was it caused a lot, they weren't they didn't really embrace him. And then eventually that team they trade away a lot of the key players, and then they brought in and they tried to build it around Pete, but it didn't work. But what's really interesting to me is the younger players who watched Pete, I'm talking about Dominique Wilkins, were like, oh my god, this guy was incredible, and that's why his number was retired in Atlanta. If you said in 1974, when they traded him to New Orleans that he was gonna get his number retired, there's there would be five percent of the people in Atlanta would have said that was possible. So this is just a little bit about how legends grow over time, how the passage of all these years kind of mitigates all of the the turmoil that happened around Pete when he was with Atlanta. And he was great in Atlanta, he became an all-star, you know, they gave they made the playoffs three of the four years. So it's not like it was a complete bust. He was an all-rookie team, but they if there was still this thing like, oh, this is not this is not helping us.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And and and when and and if they were losing or if they lost the game, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

They brought in a new coach for him and everything.

SPEAKER_00

He had trouble with Cotton Fitzsimmons, right? Right.

SPEAKER_03

Well, before that, um oh man, I'm blanking on his name. They had the the other coach from uh the New York Knicks.

SPEAKER_00

Um Richie Guerin. Yes, Richie Guerin, thank you. Uh the roles have reversed. Dude, I read the book. It's happening here. It's happening. I lived through it.

SPEAKER_03

The student is teaching the professor. I love it. So it always happens. Thank you, thank you. But you know, Richie Guerin, so they got rid of Richie Guerin.

SPEAKER_00

And what would happen, right? I mean, a couple things go back to sort of the tension. So, first of all, the fact that he was a white guy playing in a in a flashy sort of style that was just becoming popular now, right, through through Wolfley Fraser, through Elgin Baylor, through um Earl the Pearl. But he was a white guy doing it, right? So it was a little bit different. And and and the fact that when he's playing for the Hawks, some of these tensions that you're describing become racial is kind of absurd because Pete's a guy who spent his whole life growing up playing with black guys, right?

SPEAKER_03

There was no well, he played in the the the SEC was mainly white, mainly white, but if I played there, but yes, when he traveled around the country and obviously to make it racial.

SPEAKER_00

My my point is I'm defending him to make it racial is absurd.

SPEAKER_03

Well, yeah, I mean, I mean, in particular, there was a guy named Walt Hazard, yes, who had played at UCLA underwooden, and he claims he was a flashy player and they beat they beat it out of him. They're like, you can't do that, we don't want that kind of stuff. But then now when the white kid comes, right? So again, it was it's a very complex situation. That by the way, the reason I wrote this book, and it's interesting, we're here at Warner Brothers, Jack, Harry, I don't know the rest of them. Uh that the reason I wrote this book is I always wanted to make a movie about this. Wow. Because I thought it's so complex, so interesting. It's uh the story of a phenom who by his second year doesn't even want to play NBA basketball anymore.

SPEAKER_00

Right. He said he was just gonna leave, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And and he his dream was to win a chip, win a championship and get out, and that would somehow mitigate all of this criticism he was under and all of the tension with his teammates. And it was just like it just didn't seem fun to him. He called basketball a flesh peddling business, excuse me, professional basketball. Wow. And so again, he was but the crazy thing is through it all, fans flocked to see him. Loved him. Loved him all right. So it's uh like that duality. I think I could capture an emotion picture, but maybe not.

SPEAKER_00

No, just uh look, there's still time. I think it and and he suffered, right? And and and he and he suffered, right?

SPEAKER_03

Well look, he was a pro basketball player, he was a millionaire. It's not like he was like he was homeless guy.

SPEAKER_00

No, but but but but inside he suffered and he definitely he was conflicted, no question. He drank, he partied, he went, he went from one thing to another, right? Uh whether it's you know he was like the original vegan, right? Before it even existed, right?

SPEAKER_03

Um He was very proto vegan, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

You know, he he was a guy trying to latch onto UFOs and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03

He was always searching for some kind of peace. Right. The basketball was heartbreaking. I find it heartbreaking. You find it heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_00

I find it heartbreaking that that that he was was struggling and trying to find something that brought a piece when I was when a 13, 14-year-old kid like me was um just thought he was the coolest freaking dude in the world and what and wanted to be him when I grew up. So so I you know, I I shared this with you, and I I think it's kind of cool. I'm just gonna share it. So so when I was a kid, um I was obsessed with with Pete Maravich. And um in those days, there was, you know, a morning newspaper and an afternoon newspaper. New York Times got delivered in the morning, my father would take it to work and he would read it at work, and then there was an afternoon paper called Newsday. This is on Long Island, still a big paper. And in those days, this is before ESPN, this is before CNN, this is before the internet. Like, if you wanted to know what happened in the game the night before, you'd have to get the newspaper. I would come home from school and there would be the newsday, and I would immediately open it up and see what what pistol did. And my mother had bought a surplus desk from the elementary school, and I said, Hey mom, can I use this desk? And I started cutting out every box score that pistol, every box score of of Maravich, and I would scotch tape it to this desk, and then there was there was an article on Sports Illustrated, not the Curry Kirkpatrick one, but maybe it was in Sport magazine. Anyway, I created, and I think we'll splice it in here later. I created the pistol, the Pete Maravich desk, which is a where was that desk? Where is it physically now? Where was it at the time? It was in my in it was in my in my bedroom in in my house that I share, in my room that I share with my brother, and every day I would get the paper and I would cut out the box score and I would scutch.

SPEAKER_03

So you were sort of obsessed with Pete Maravage?

SPEAKER_00

Obsessed? I was insanely obsessed with Pete Maravage.

SPEAKER_03

Did you have the like the poster?

SPEAKER_00

Posters of him on the wall with his floppy hair, his long hair. Did you have the cards, obviously? I had I had the basketball cards, which by the way was super cool. If you collected basketball cards, because the players were so tall, they had long skinny cards, if you remember, right? You know, the regular baseball card is whatever size this was, they had because they were seven-foot guys, right? So they had longer cards. So that that pistol Pete Maravitch desk has followed me around my whole life. Um, it went through uh a couple of houses, a couple of marriages, a couple of garages, but now it sits in the podcast, the courtside with Mark podcast studio in Houston, Texas. So it's it's really um I've had it for for 50-something years.

SPEAKER_03

And uh it's still held with Scotch tape, or did you still held with Scotch tape?

SPEAKER_00

It's got Scotch tape all over it, man.

SPEAKER_03

Because I saw a picture of it and I thought there was like, you know, that epoxy or whatever it'd be.

SPEAKER_00

It's Scotch tape, dude. It's it's like throw it's Scotch, it's 1974 Scotch tape.

SPEAKER_03

And it never yellowed?

SPEAKER_00

That's kind of yellowed a little bit, but it it held up over all the years. It held up over all the years.

SPEAKER_03

Do you remember like the first thing you put on the desk?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think I put a box score. I think I put it. You remember the game? I put a box, I don't remember the specific game.

SPEAKER_03

Because I remember every game he No, I'm kidding. You really want to be a good one.

SPEAKER_00

But but this desk sits there and it's and it really um it's it's um That is cool.

SPEAKER_03

So you really connected with him? I really connected with him. Were there any other kids in the neighborhood that were just like into Pete like you?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I think a couple there were some, but I was a little I was a little different than the average kid. And so I was pretty obsessed. And the fact that now 50, it's 50 years. I've had the desk for 50 years. Um, and it's followed me everywhere. We we did put a piece of glass on top of it now because I brought it into the studio and some idiot put a coffee cup down on it. It was like you wouldn't put a coffee cup on like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, right? Or the Magna Carta.

SPEAKER_03

Well, you would never put a coffee cup on a box score between Atlanta and uh yeah the Philadelphia 76ers from 1973.

SPEAKER_00

Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_03

In the middle of yeah, in the middle of February.

SPEAKER_00

You gotta put glass down on it.

SPEAKER_03

This is everyone wants to see that box.

SPEAKER_00

This is the Magna Carta of NBA. So now we have a piece of glass on on top of it. That's super cool. Yeah. So Is your name Mark? My name is Mark, yeah. Yeah, that's super cool, Mark. I appreciate it, man. So it's so it it he uh, you know, so I have become uh obsessed, and and I and I and I try and shout him out as often as possible.

SPEAKER_03

Well, this must be incredible.

SPEAKER_00

It's amazing, man. So to meet a guy like you who shares that passion.

SPEAKER_03

I didn't I didn't do anything like that. Well, you put me in your group. You didn't have a weird Scotch tape group. Yeah, there's a lot of weird groups. I didn't have anything like that. There was no pictures of Pete Merefitch in my room.

SPEAKER_00

You did write a 400-page book.

SPEAKER_03

I did eventually. Okay. Because yeah. And I think it's one I think it's I know this sounds like hyperbole, and it probably is, but I do think there's a Shakespearean quality to the whole arc of the thing, especially when you get to his death. Let's and the Christianity and all of it. I mean, it's just let's let's we don't I mean, again, if we want to, we can go into it.

SPEAKER_00

Let's spend a couple minutes talking about that because you're speaking about it right from from knowledge, and I know about it, but not everybody listening to us knows about it. So, so talk about it right. So, so so Alan eventually. He says, you know what, this isn't working. It's not working. You know, we brought this guy in, he's gonna be the greatest player ever. This is a shit show, no offense. We they sent him to the New Orleans Jazz.

SPEAKER_03

It's not a shit show, but it just doesn't it's not working. It's not working, it's not working.

SPEAKER_00

They sent him to New Orleans.

SPEAKER_03

Um trade him, yeah. And New Orleans has to trade away their future to get him. So Pete's gonna be in a place where he's not gonna be playing with great players. Right. I mean, obviously, they're in the NBA, they're yeah, but it was very hard for him to get that championship. But he's back in New Orleans, he's back in Louisiana, where the legend blossomed, and he's given green light, he gets Elgin Baylor, eventually becomes his coach. It's like you gotta do your Pete thing. Like people love it, you know, and that and that's when he really blossoms. That's this is what's interesting to me, is was a little with Atlanta, yes, but with New Orleans, he becomes the best playmaker according to Red Hour back in the league. Amazing and leads the league in scoring, which we just talked about. Only four people have done what he had did, and becomes first team all NBA, which means you're one of the two best guards in basketball. Incredible. This is Pete Merriba. So, and I feel like his achievements in New Orleans and to a lesser extent in Atlanta solidified the legend that was at LSU.

SPEAKER_00

Amazing.

SPEAKER_03

So now it's not only like, oh, I can score a bunch of points against, I don't know, Georgia Tech or something like that, or or or excuse me, University of Georgia or something like that. I can score 68 points against Walt Fraser.

SPEAKER_00

Wow, it's amazing. Which you did, right? That was the game of Madison Squares Garden scored 68 against Clyde. Against Clyde, who was a was a hell of a defensive player.

SPEAKER_03

It was actually in New Orleans, but that's in New Orleans, okay. But yes, so that's his uh pinnacle game. And so that success sort of like it was not like because most people who are big scorers in college flame out in the pros. Right, right. They're usually from a smaller school, they're given the green light. So that really now that's why he's a top 50 player, right? Is because of what happened in New Orleans. And then, yeah, and then eventually he goes to Boston at the very end. You know, he has a sorrible knee injury.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, there's so many twists and turns we can yeah and and the sad thing about it, right, is he winds up in Boston at the end of his career, and you just said all he wanted to do was to win a championship and walk away. Get the hell out. And he and he missed it by a year. He gets to Boston.

SPEAKER_03

This is what Pete Meravich.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_03

It's that's the Pete Meravich, right?

SPEAKER_00

It's the beginning of the Larry Bird, you know, the great Larry Bird, you know, Robert Parrish, you know, you know, Kevin McHale teams, Dennis Johnson. I mean, I may not have the exact lineup at that time. And if I'm correct, I mean you'll correct me because you wrote the book. Yeah um he plays that one year and they actually half a year, half a year. Half a year, okay. And um walks away and um walks away, they wanted him back, they wanted him back, but they didn't want him to start.

SPEAKER_03

Right. And I think that he said later that hurt his ego.

SPEAKER_00

That they would that they wanted McCraw to come off the bench.

SPEAKER_03

Behind yeah, Chris Ford.

SPEAKER_00

Right, yeah. So And so he miss and then he doesn't come back that next year. He decides not to. And what happens? The Celtics win the championship, right?

SPEAKER_03

Classic Maravit.

SPEAKER_00

Classic Maravitch. So so now he I but but at this point in his his life, or again, I'm you wrote the book and all serious books.

SPEAKER_03

Can I say something else? Yes, in that last year when he played in um new in Boston and a little in at Utah Jazz, yes, the craziest name, obviously, in all the sports, right? The Charlie Mingus Provo sessions, we all have them, right?

SPEAKER_00

Miles Davis spent so many. Miles Davis was in Salt Lake City like all the time, and just jamming, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Um that that's the first year they had the three-point line. Oh wow, I didn't realize Pete Merovich took 15 threes that year, made 10 of them. 66.7 percent, the highest of anyone who's ever taken at least five or ten shots. Again, it's not his real statistic because you have to have like a hundred or something. But let me just say, if he had been one for fifteen, you'd be hearing about it.

SPEAKER_00

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03

Ten for fifteen.

SPEAKER_00

That's incredible, right?

SPEAKER_03

And then and now again on bad knees. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And phenomenal player, and and but by this point in his his life, he'd he was burnt out. Right. He was burnt out. He had he'd he had he embraced Christianity, he'd become uh right. I don't know when exactly the time frame.

SPEAKER_03

No, this was later.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so tell me about later.

SPEAKER_03

He played, made a lot of money, da da da. He was trying to get this ring, never happened. Uh Pete Meravich, let's get rid of him. He's you know, and was despondent, suicidal. Talked about driving off the the bridge. And he has two kids. You know, this is intense. So he's again searching, searching, has her epiphany. Feels like God spoke to him, is convinced of it, and from that day he is a transformed man, finds Christianity, and this finally gives him the hope, the peace, the vision to live his life. And he becomes uh born-again Christian and proselytizes, gives his testimony, and doesn't want anything to do with it. He says if people just know me as a basketball player, it's not, but then slowly they start doing NBA All-Star Weekend, which is this weekend, right now, as I'm speaking to you here in LA. They start doing um legends games during NBA All-Star Weekend. This is David Stern's idea. So starting in '84, I think is the first one. They bring Pete, and people go nuts for him. They're like, Oh my god, where you been, Pistol? We missed you. And he's like, I just want to talk about Christ and all of this, but people are love, he plays the game, it looks great. Right. Like, you know, he's a vegetarian, so he's like, you know, all the other players are, you know, doughy is the word I would use, right? And he's killing it. So he becomes like the he's he uh uh what's the word for it? He judges the three-point content. Like it's so he's slowly being brought back, and then he uh he gets inducted into the Hall of Fame. Beautiful. Unfortunately, his dad gets cancer, he has to take care of his dad, and then he out here in California, right over here in Pasadena, right over there, not that far from where we're sitting right now. He's playing a pickup game with some Christian guys who's about to do a radio show with them. Dobson, like the drops dead of a heart attack, massive heart attack. 40 years old, 40 years old. So they do an autopsy. They they were like, oh my god, this is crazy. It was Pete Merovich. How is this? This is a premier athlete. 40 year old man, yeah. Yeah, I was just 24 points in the in the NBA, right? 24.2, which was like top 20 of all time at that time, maybe 14th. So um eventually they after the thing, they do an autopsy, find out he's missing his left coronary artery.

SPEAKER_00

How could that be?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, just this medical miracle could have died at age 17, was like by a thread the whole time.

SPEAKER_00

That's unbelievable, right? To to walk up a flight of stairs. Anything, you know, it is and and he played competitive sports at the highest level, missing a key piece of his heart. Yes. It's um it's it's like you said, it's changing.

SPEAKER_03

And we talked to we if you get to that part of the book, we talked to cardiologists about it. It's undetectable at that time. Now, when you we put the die through, you can see the situation. And because he had physicals all through his life. There was one physical early on at LSU that kept him out of the draft, uh, where the doctor was like, I think there's something wrong with this guy's heart. And they just his dad ignored it. So uh, but and so this adds another layer of like mythology and uh mysticism to the whole life. And when they named the top 50 in 1996, uh and they revealed it at the All-Star Game in Cleveland in uh February 1997, Pete was the only deceased player at the in the history of basketball that was on that list. Wow.

SPEAKER_00

It's really it's it's it's tragic, and like you say, it's Shakespearean in its sort of the arc of his life. And um I find it on on a personal level as as sort of my childhood hero, yeah, I find it um uh just just cathartic and and and and and and and and enjoyable to share the share his story with you, to share the story with with um everybody who hopefully is gonna listen to this podcast. I think he was a special player, a special person, and I think his story deserves to be told. So shout out to you and praise to you for writing a book about him and and you know, and um and coming on and sharing some of that stuff with us. I I I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03

I'm happy and I can't believe it's MEA All-Star Weekends.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, it's kind of a crazy, it's uh a crazy crazy. That's why you're here, right? That is why I'm here. Well, mostly to see Wayne Fetterman, but yes, they they're playing a game this weekend too. But you know, Fetterman lives in LA. I gotta come to LA, man.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you. Well, well, I uh congratulations on the desk.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you very much. That Scotch tape is getting a little bit wrinkly.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, no. That's cool that you held on to what's gonna happen to it. Are you gonna pass it off?

SPEAKER_00

I have children, man. You know, I have five kids, they're gonna have to fight over it, right?

SPEAKER_03

There's four other I've only mentioned one.

SPEAKER_00

My daughter's sitting right here. Uh my daughter Ariella, who works in the um, you know, in the podcast with me, but there are four others, they're gonna fight over it. You know, that's fine. I just but you know, but they can't put but nobody can put coffee on it or something like that. But now there's glass on it, you know. There's glass on it, but you know, if if somebody takes the glass off, you know, yeah. I don't, you know. My spirit will come back in a really nasty way if somebody spills like Dr. Pepper on it or something.

SPEAKER_03

Well, this has been a lot of fun. We got to talk about the bullets a little bit. We got to do this. Anything else you need, or are we gonna wrap?

SPEAKER_00

I think we can wrap it there. Let's wrap it up. I think we'll wrap it there. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Wayne Ferman. Thanks for it.

SPEAKER_03

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00

Thanks for watching this week's episode. Like and subscribe to the channel. We'll see you next time.