“Listen to me, eyes of mine, guard that which is thine” Serbian Folk Song
I just finished reading Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich by Mark Kriegel, and man was it an amazing book. I am a sucker of course for sports stories, and a huge Pistol Pete fan[1], and this book is a sports story about Pistol Pete, so of course I would say it’s amazing. The story goes way deeper than just being a biography and sports story though. The book ties together sports, family, creation, love, and pressure in a way that shows both the glories and the lowest stages of life.
There was so much I learned from reading this book that I would have to write a book myself just to talk about it all. I can say though that I finished this book in a week. The book is about 320 pages long, and if anyone knows me, usually a book this size would take me over a month to finish. For the first time I know what it is like to pick up a book and not be able to put it down because each and every word kept my eyes glued to the script and my fingers flipping through the pages.
The first third or so of the book taught me a lot about basketball. Press Maravich, Pete’s dad, is actually as much of a main character in the story as Pete. The story I would say is a true father-son story. The first part of the book focuses on Press who was really one of the early pioneers of the sport of basketball. I learned a great deal about the beginnings of the sport, how Press was a visionary, and really how the sport became what it is today.[2]
The second bit of the book focuses on Pete. It is interesting the way the book tackles the life of Pete though because it tells the story as a boy who never really was able to escape the expectations of his father. We all know that Pete Maravich is the best college player of all time and one of the best basketball players of all time, but this story isn’t one of glitz and glamour. Pistol Pete’s life was one of a child star. From the first time that Press put a basketball in his son’s hands at age three he would forever be known as the Pistol. The story of Pete is a conflict between a person, from a boy to a man, trying to either accept his role as the Pistol or run away from that same role. The book was a painted a perfect picture of this struggle in Pete’s life that ruined him in the end.
The last part of the book is Pete’s life after basketball. It involves the death of close family members and the life of new family members. Pete had a very complicated life while he was in the spotlight, but the same complications followed him even as he left basketball. His life playing basketball left him a little off, but he could never be sane without basketball. I like how this last little bit of the book shows the struggles of Pete’s kids living in “The Pistol’s” shadow. The way the book is written you almost feel sorry for the kids, but you end up almost proud of the kids as if they were your own.
The book is more than just a portrait of a basketball family. It is a portrait of the struggles faced when living, or trying to live “the American dream.” It is a portrait of immigrant life in the early 1900’s, a portrait of a son constantly chasing the his own shadow which was created by his father, and it is a portrait of a man searching… just searching, for something other than what he was handed in life.
I was expecting to read a book about a basketball hero of mine, and just bask in his amazing-ness as I flipped through the pages. Instead I was put on a roller coaster through the life of a man and his son who developed the game in which my whole life is centered today. The rollercoaster was not the Millennium Force though which finishes with everyone cheering, laughing, smiling, high fiving their friends, and wiping the tears produced by extreme G-forces and pure joy. Instead the roller coaster was The Magnum, a great ride which is exciting and fun, but as you pull back in to the station you push impatiently at your safety bar to get out of your seat because it was a little too tight and the bumps in the ride left you a little queasy and gave you a small headache in the back of your head. This fact is why it was such a great book, because the life of Pistol Pete is one that you would look at from the outside and wish to have, but when you actually saw what rollercoaster his life was you would only ride it once or twice, then get as far away from it as possible.
[1] Really though… who isn’t? I remember as a kid even before I liked basketball my parents showed me the movie about Pistol Pete. The one that is loosely based on Pete’s 8th grade season while his dad was coaching at Clemson. If any of you have seen it, especially as a kid, the parts where Pete is dribble blind folded in his basement or spinning the ball on his finger for an hour and flicking it through the hoop at the end, there is no way you couldn’t have fallen in love with the Pistol, or at least the idea of him.
[2] One thing I learned is that Pistol Pete, who was almost a machine built by his father, made the game what it is today. Many people could say that Magic, Bird and Jordan are the ones that changed the game, but basketball today has almost as much to thank to the Maravich’s for as it does Mr. Naismith. The Maravich’s were pioneers of the game, and because of them the game has forever changed.
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