Pistol Pete
In the early days of February 1970, I became a college hoops fan even before my father put up the short basketball hoop that summer against our garage wall. I was five going on fifteen and all boy as my mother recorded in my baby book. This was a special time in college basketball though and it formed a beginning passion for me. A quintessential time that comes once in a boy’s lifetime. Pistol Pete Maravich a senior player at LSU was leading the nation in so many categories that his story seemed larger than life. I was watching for any news about his games.
Pete was electrifying the nation and me with his efforts on the floor by taking basketball unknown LSU into unfamiliar playoff contention by putting up points like a machine. A machine gun to be exact as one broad caster punned. At Tulane in a 110-94 win Pistol Pete put in 66 points and the news broadcasters were now taking a closer look at what Pete did to become so proficient. Pete in an interview was shy and quiet but those who knew him explained that his skills were perfected through hours and hours of repetitious drills at all hours of the day and night.
I was marveling at his prowess and loved that his home court was nicknamed the Cow Palace. Our television at Limekiln lake was a small black and white dial affair with three stations and only one that would tune in with good reception. It was difficult to find the games of Pistol Pete on television because the basketball power houses of Kentucky and UCLA were National icons.
It was always the same on a Saturday as the afternoon game came on broadcasters would talk about Pistol Pete while they were doing play by play of two other teams. Snow was drifting down out side as a tried to watch the game the occasional snowmobile passing made our television go haywire and there were twenty second stretches that went blurry but that was the way I fell in love with the sport.
I had a plastic bowling ball that I used to try and dribble and shoot with. In later years I developed a coat hanger bent into a hoop that could slide in the top of the door jam in the groove between two knotty pine boards. The net I made from an onion bag. I spent hours in our living room making a record of how many free throws in a row I could make on my homemade indoor Adirondack cottage court.
