January 8, 2024 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, just days before his death, the 40 year-old Maravich shared his story to a small audience about his life pursuing success and fame—until that pursuit brought him to his knees. This is the story of him coming to Christ.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
This is our American Stories. Pistol Pete Marivitch is widely
regarded as one of the greatest players in basketball history,
also one of my personal hoops heroes. Marrivich starred in
college with the LSU Tigers while playing for his father,
head coach Press Marivich. He's the all time leading NCAAA
Division One scorer still with thirty six hundred and sixty
(00:34):
seven points, and he averaged forty four point two points
per game. All of his accomplishments were achieved before the
adoption of the three point shot and the shot clock,
and despite being able to play varsity as a freshman
under the NCAA rules. That's crazy. Marriviage played ten years
in the NBA and is considered by many to be
the best ball handler of all time. Just days before
(00:58):
his death on January nineteen eighty eight, the forty year
old Pistol Pete spoke to guests who gathered near the
pool side of Jimmy Walker's house. An NBA All Star.
We'd like to thank Vision Video for giving us special
access to this rare bonus footage you were about to
hear from their fantastic uplifting movie The pistol the birth
(01:18):
of a legend. Three to g And we're telling this
story because on this day in nineteen eighty eight, pistol
Pete Maravitch died. Here's Pete Marrivich looking back on his life,
just dazed before his death.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I grew up in Clemson, South Carolina. When I was
four years old, the only thing I ever knew was basketball.
By the time I was five years old, I was
already playing organized basketball. My parents baited me into the game,
that never forced me in. When I was seven years old,
my dad came to me and he says, Pete, he says,
I don't have any money to send you to college.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
You're gonna have to get a scholarship. If you get
a scholarship, they'll pay your way.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Only make twenty nine hundred dollars a year, and that's
she's not going to pay your way by the time
you get there. And if you're good enough, Pete, you
might even make it to the pro basketball. That's where
the greatest players play, and there's so few. And if
you get there, you might play on a team that
wins a world championship and.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
You'll get a big diamond ring.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Pete, so big and it has on their world champions,
and you'll be declared as the rest of the team,
one of the greatest at that particular time.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Not only that, Pete, you'll be able to make money.
They'll pay you for doing it.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
They'll pay you for playing something that you enjoy doing well.
From that day, I decided to commit my.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Life totally to basketball.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I was dedicated, possessed and obsessed by I was so
dedicated to it.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I'll tell you some of the things I used to do.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
We lived two and a half miles outside of town
in Clemson, South Carolina, and I used to get the
basketball and I'd dribble in all the way.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
I would not accept the ride. I wo'd dribble in with.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
My right hand and dribble back home with my left hand,
five miles a day to the gym where I'd play
eight to ten hours a day. When I finally got
a bicycle when I was about eleven years old ten
eleven years old, I learned to dribble the basketball on
my bicycle all the way in. It made a lot
of to get into town too, and I got there quicker,
and I dribbled the ball by riding the bicycle It
(03:06):
got so bizarre that my dad came to me one
day and he says, Pete, come on, get your basketball
and let's go in the car. So where are we going,
he says, I'll tell you when we get there. He
went over it, and he went on this specific highway
and there weren't many cars there, and he said, now, look,
I want you to get in the back.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
See stick yourself.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Out that back window there, and you start dribbling the ball.
I'm gonna drive at various speeds. I want to see
if you can really control this then. And so I
did that, and he'd go five, ten, fifteen miles an
hour and twenty miles an hour.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
And of course, if you realize when you're trying to.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Drive a basketball of a car or on a bicycle,
you got to throw it away out in front because
he's going and it's coming back. It really comes back quick,
along with a lot of rocks. And to see the
faces on the people that just happened to be driving by.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Was something in itself. It really was.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I used to tick the basket ball to bed with me.
I slept with a basketball till I was about thirteen
years old. I would get in bed and I'd lay
in the bed for one hour before I ever went
to sleep, and I would repeat three things fingertip control, backspin,
follow through, fingertip control, backspin, follow through as I released
it laying down.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
I was completely possessed by the game.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
I used to go around my house blindfolded, dribbling the
ball because I knew whe everything was, of course, through
the dismay of my mother, sometimes I didn't.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Then I knew how to drill the ball very fast.
Out of the house.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I used to get the basketball and I would dribble
out in thunderstorms, lightning, everything else you couldn't even see.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
I used to sneak out of my back window. I'd
go to this little spot where it was a mud hole.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
It was kind of a real hard mud, and I'd
start drilling the balls of mud and everything splashed up
on me and literally scared to death because of the
thunder and lightning. Because I felt like if I could
dribble in that mud and that water and everything else
control it, I could certainly do it on a court
when someone was guarding me. See, I was so committed
to the game of basketball. In fact, from the time
I was five years old, I was seventeen years old,
(04:58):
I played over twenty thousand I hours of basketball. And
the March Readers Digest they had a story in there
about television and how it affects young people's minds or
any person. It wasn't four against television. It just says
how it affects one's mind. And it said that the
average person by the time he's twenty years old sees
twenty thousand hours of television. And I kind of paralleled
(05:18):
that with my life, twenty thousand hours of people watching television.
I've spent twenty thousand hours of hard sweat playing the
game of basketball. When I was twelve years old, it
was my first time I ever played in a regular
game for junior varsity. I made the junior varsity when
I was twelve and I was at thirteen, I started
on my high school team and played five years of
(05:39):
high school basketball. I was four foot nine and a
half and at that time, a twelve A reporter came
up to me after the game, and I used to
shoot the basketball from down here because I was too
weak to shoot it from up here, and so I
used to take the ball and take it and release
it like this and this reporter saw him and he says,
what looks like this guy is drawing a pistol and
(06:00):
he wrote that up and that name is stick Stuck.
Ever since I just threw that in, I know that
doesn't interest you at all, but I just wanted to
say that. But he asked me. After the game, he
came up and interviewed me. I was my first interview
I ever had, and I wish it had been my last.
But he said, what are you going to do when
you grow up? Crystol Pete? And I said, well, I'm
gonna play pro basketball. I'm gonna be on a team
(06:22):
that wins a world championship to get a diamond ring
and make a million dollars. And he literally fell off
his chair with laughter, and I said, what are you
laughing about it? He said, a million dollars. They don't
make that kind of money. This was in the fifties,
and he was right. But I just felt like at
some point in my life I would My early church
life was absolutely probably zero. I was not raised in
(06:42):
a Christian home. I was raised in a church home.
I was raised with telling Pete, you got to go
to church. It's good to go to church. You gotta
you need church. But when I got into church, I
didn't never hear anything. I never heard who Jesus Christ
was when I was young because I didn't want to hear.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
See.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I was sitting there and literally count ticks in my
head one, two, three up to a minute, and that
would go for an hour until I got out of there.
I felt that if I was in this church for
an hour, somebody in Philadelphia, La Boston or New York
was playing basketball, and when it came down to get that.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Scholarship, I would not get it.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
See, And I progressed on into my teenage years.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
When I was fourteen years old, was the first time
I ever had.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
My first taste of alcohol. I had a beer at
fourteen years of age on the steps of the Methodist
church in Clemson, South Carolina.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
And I liked it. I really did like it. I
liked it a lot.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
If it's something I can tell you young people here tonight,
it's this, don't ever take that first drink, and don't
ever take that first drug, because it'll never be your
last and it'll lead to destruction. Because that's literally what
almost happened in my own life. Ninety eight percent of
all people in jails today started with that first drink.
Eighty five percent of over five hundred thousand people in
(07:58):
correctional institutions day committed their crimes, but only the influence
of a mind altering substance.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Drugs are alcohol.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
And all of a sudden, this tremendous commitment that I
had and everything else, I kind of went down the drain.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I didn't have it anymore.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
And I'd played so much up until that time when
I was fourteen fifteen going to sixteen seventeen, but all
of a sudden, I had time on the weekends to
do other things. I saw the opposite sex for the
first time in life. You see, I was completely obsessed
with basketball. I didn't do whatever other people did. My
god was basketball. Their god was sex, alcohol and whatever else.
(08:38):
But I didn't see any of that until I was fourteen.
And then my eyes opened up and I enjoyed it,
and I started getting into it. And then that toe
hold became a foothold, and the foothold became a stronghold,
and that stronghold became an entire possession.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
I'm not scared to tell you here. I was an alcoholic.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I can't get people to write that up because I've
never been to a clinic or anything, and all my
friends drink just like I did, and they were alcoholics too.
I enjoyed it a great deal because there's a great
pleasure in sin. There's a lot of pleasure in it.
Because there wasn't nobody would do it. When I was
eighteen years old, I was asked to go out to
take Arrowhead out in San Bernardino, California, to a campus
(09:16):
crusade for christ. They asked me to come out there
and do what you just saw here, what was called showtime.
They said, would you come out here and do your
clinic Pete. I said, well, sure, that'd be great. I'll
bring one of my friends and we'll just come out
there California.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
I've never been there. It'll be fun. So we got
in the car and I was just.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Reaching my eighteenth birthday, literally right before what was to
be called the Pistol pe Era in Southeastern Conference basketball.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
And you're listening to Pistol Pete Marrivitch reflecting on his
own life, his days before his tragic death and a
premature death at that. When we come back more of
it's remarkable talk by Pistol Pete who died on this
day in eighteen eighty eight. Here on our American stories,
(10:09):
and we're back with our American stories, and way to
continue with Pistol Pete Maravich, who died on this day
in eighteen eighty eight, one of the old time greatest
players and an idol of mine. I can't tell you
how many hours I spent watching him on television, the
rare times he would come on, and then trying to
copy every single thing he did. Let's go back to
(10:31):
Pistol Pete.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And so I drove out there and we partied all
the way out, and we had fun, and we chased girls,
and we just were in every bar we could find
and everything else.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Took us three or four days to get out there.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
And as I drove up on this campus, I noticed
that there were people sitting around praying and holding hands
under trees and things of this nature.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
And I became very embarrassed.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I didn't want any part of that, and I told
my friend, I said, hey, we got to hear you
get out of here. I'm gonna this clinic and get out.
These people are nuts, I mean, what are they smoking?
And put that beer down. We don't want to, you know,
we don't want to see him with this, with this beer.
So I checked into this place and it was for
three days, and I asked, HM, when am I supposed
to do my clinic? And they said, well, people, we're
(11:14):
not sure yet, but if you just bear with us,
we're gonna have you over here with this group. And
I said, what do you mean, what am I going
to do? Is it's well nothing, there's nothing to do.
We'll just put you here, would you would be all right?
And I said okay. So I stayed with this group.
My friend went with another group. Now for three days,
I finally heard who Jesus Christ was. I wasn't concerned
about that. To me, it was just a story. It
(11:35):
was a story. It was nice, that's nice. But after
the end of three days there there was no impact
on my life.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
We went out to the beach.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Bill Battle, who was an All American football player and
with a bicep as large as my thigh, said we're
going out to the beach.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
I'm taking this group with me. We're going to witness
for Christ. And I said, what do you mean witness?
What is this Bill?
Speaker 2 (11:57):
What do you mean witness? What were you talking about
you come along, Pete. We just want to show what
we do here. So I went along with him and
we went out on the beaches out there in California
beaches and he he goes up to the worst looking group.
This is back during the sixties. This is the most
revolutionary time, the rebellious time in our history. Probably it's
(12:20):
led to so much of the rebellion today. And yet
he went up to the worst looking group. Guy had tattoos,
all of his own hair down here, was smoking a joint, drinking.
There was about four or five of them. They were
mean looking, ugly, they didn't smell very good everything. And
I stayed wait in the background. But you know, the
Lord has a way to use people. You see, he
went up to this guy who was the meanest looking guy.
(12:41):
Right behind his head, he says, you know something, I
would really like to share something with you folks.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
And this guy was literally going to turn around and
punch him. I not because he turned around.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
He said, look, go right ahead, because that ad by
said was right in his face. Now, if anything impressed me,
it was that that did impress me. I said, Wow,
how God gets people's attention, It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
So they witnessed, and I don't remember. I think some
of them left right away.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
They said, oh you Jesus freates and all this kind
of stuff, and I just kind of turned my head.
I didn't want to know part of it. At the
end of three days there was a thousand kids and
I was part of it. And Bill Bright, who's founder
of the Camp scru Sad, gave a message much like
Billy Graham had an invitation for people to come receive Christ.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Then he had him to come publicly and receive him.
Lo and Behold. My friend was sitting next to me.
He got up. I said, what are you doing, says Pete.
I don't know what to tell you. I really don't
know what to tell you. I've just received Christ into
my life. I said, ken, hey man, ken' you something
you ate or something?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
And I grabbed him by the arm. I literally tried
to steal away his salvation. I said, don't go up there,
the embarrassing me. I remember saying that, and he pulled
away and he went up there. He says, you don't understand.
I said, no, I don't. And he walked up there.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
And I remember sitting there and saying, well, you're not
gonna get God.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I'm gonna play pro basketball being a world championship team
and make a million dollars.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Boy asks what I want in life.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
But you know, as I've reflected over that time, how
many times I've cried and wish that I'd received Christ
in my life, then you know why, because God had
sent me there for a purpose, not to do a clinic.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
I never did one. Nobody even asked me, but He
put me there for one reason.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Pete, come home now, Come home now, because you're about
to embark on a tremendous amount of personal tragedy and
destruction in your life.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
And it doesn't have to be that way, but you
can choose that way and you don't have to. And
I want to on into college, and I did a
lot of things in college.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I've set something like around fifty basketball records from high school, college,
and pro. The amount of trophies and awards and plaques
that I have, the amount of honorary mayorship and keys
the cities that I have, except the time when I
go to those cities and try to get the keys,
they don't ever give them to me. It could literally, really,
(15:08):
I could go around this entire pool area. Now, I
have a trophy from nineteen seventy two in a box.
It's never been opening. Six foot five inches and six
foot five one quarter inch tall, the exact.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Height of me. I've never seen it. I've never opened
the box. But they're all stored away. They don't really
do anything for me.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
But I've had all those trophies, awards, I've had popularity,
I've had fame. I had a tremendous amount of fame
back in the sixties, tremendous amount of popularity everywhere when
we played before over right at a million people in
college in three years, and that's pretty good.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
And I had all this adulation and people wrote me.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
I got thousands of letters a week from fans. We
idolize you, Pete Merriwich, You're my idol.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
You're this, You're that. And I wasn't a role model
at all, not at all. I wasn't a role model
for young people at all. None. Zero.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
And then after my college and I was all of
American and I was I'm the leading scorer of all
time in college basketball.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
It'll be broken someday, but I'm the.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Leading scorer averaged over forty four points a game for
a three year period. Just hold just all kinds of records.
My high school records are still hell. I still hold
the record for the.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
All Star game.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I scored forty seven points in the East West High
School All Star Game back in nineteen sixty five. That's
still there, it hasn't been broken. And some great players
have come through there. And then I went into pros,
you see. And I had a lot of fun in college,
a lot of fun, too much fun. In fact, I
was in nine accidents in college and walked away from
every one of them.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Not only that.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
One time I was coming home from putting on a
clinic in Pennsylvania and I drove seven hundred miles and
I stopped for the night.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
It was a halfway point, and I went down.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
To a local pub ocle little bar, sat in there
and had about two beers, and a young lady came over.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
To me and said, how are you, sweetie? I said,
I'm just fine. He said, you mind if I sit
down here? I said, well, suit yourself. So I was
sitting there.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
I wasn't there at two minutes when a guy came
up to me, about six foot five, about two hundred
and seventy pounds, said, what are you doing with my girl?
Speaker 3 (17:26):
He said, I'm not doing anything with her, sir. I'm
just sitting here. I'm just having this cold beer here.
I don't want any trouble. I didn't, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
And he started pushing me. He started hit me in
the shoulder. And I grew up as a kid knowing
that you never backed down from anybody. I don't care
what the odds. I wasn't going back down. And I
told him to get his hands off of me, and
all this, and before long, one thing led to another,
and they.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Said, y'all get out of here. If you're gonna fight.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
He said, yeah, come on, So I said fine. So
I got up and I went out quickly, and I
made myself through the crowd and I got outside and
I stayed behind the door, and I was really gonna
get this guy when he came out.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
But he never came. Of course. I didn't wait there
about two minutes.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
And he didn't come, you see, And so I said,
I'm better get out of here, and I left, and
I walked out in the parking lot. As I was
walking in the back of the parking lot, I tore
it up. I saw a telephone booth where I was
gonna call a taxi to go to a holiday in
where I was staying. As I was walking out, I
heard this guy came out and yelled to me, and
(18:29):
little did I know that another guy had gone around
the other side, and they both had blackjacks, which I
didn't know.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
And the guy.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
The old story is that the guy just literally they
just hit me from behind and beat me up pretty good.
As I laid there on that parking lot that night,
that girl came up and I was all blood, and
she took a twenty five automatic pistol and she put
it in my mouth and cocked it, and she said,
you're a dead man. Pistol Pete, how about that? Were
(19:00):
laying there, and from the depths of my heart, I said, yeah,
kill me, because then I'll have peace.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
And you've been listening to Pistol Pete Marrivig, who died
on this day in eighteen eighty eight, and he gave
this speech not long before his death, indeed, just days.
More of Pistol Pete Marrivitch's life story, his last story
that he told in front of a large audience. Here
on our American Stories, and we continue with our American
(19:42):
stories and with pistol Pete Marrivich's story who died on
this day in eighteen eighty eight, one of the last
ones he told in his life, this one just days
before he passed.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
But you know something, there's a god up there that
overruled Satan that night too.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
He overruled him. And I know that.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
And I went into the pros and I signed the
largest contract in the history of sports, not basketball sports
at the time, it made the Guinness Book of Records.
It lasted thirty days. They started pouring out a lot
of big money back then. And I searched all through
the nineteen seventies for what meaning there was to life.
(20:28):
I had to know the meaning, what was the meaning?
And I got involved in all kinds of different things.
I was involved in yoga and TM, I was involved
very heavily in ufology, philosophy.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
I was involved in different religions, Hinduism especially. I was
involved in everything.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
But the thing about it is, none of it really
satisfied me. They were just all brief interludes of satisfaction,
much like my life was brief interludes of just ego, gratification, satisfaction.
And all through that time in fact, in nineteen seventy six,
I was going to live to be one hundred and
fifty years old.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
And I got very heavily in a nutrition because I was.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Into Hinduism and I was into the karma and all
these other types of situations.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
And I became a vegetarian and then a fruitarian.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And a macrobotic and a mini dose and a MAXI
dosed on vitamins and I fasted twenty five days, and
I sat in all kinds of different positions, and I
was searching for life, for friends. I was really searching
for life because my life had no meaning at all.
My life had absolutely no meaning at all. And at
each one of these stops, each one of these stops,
I had to have something else. They just didn't satisfy me.
(21:35):
In nineteen eighty I quit basketball.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
I just quit. I walked away from it because of
immaturity and because of the fact that I just got
tired of it all. I just got tired of it.
I got tired of my life, and I became a recluse.
For about two years. I sat in my home.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
We had our first son, Jason, he was only one
and a half years old, and I was set there
for hours at a time, trying to teach him seven
and eight year old puzzles because I want I wanted
to my son Jason to have what I didn't. I
wanted him to have a high intellect. See, I wanted
him to be an intelligent person. I want him to
be able to go to the right parties and say
the right things. I thought that was important. I really
(22:13):
thought that was important. And so my wife used to
come to me and she says, Pete, you really need
to go see someone, because you're really flipping out.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
I said, what do you mean. She says, you haven't
left his house in two weeks. I said, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Know.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
I brought to the garage and sof but I was
really lost.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
And in nineteen eighty two I went to bed one night.
It was like any other night. Pete marriviage had all
the material things you could want. I used to carry
around five thousand dollars in my pocket and cash in twenties.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
I never cared any change. But I had all that stuff,
and none of it ever satisfied. I mean not the money,
not the wealth, not the success.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And I laid there in vad and I couldn't sleep,
and I didn't understand it, and all of a sudden,
everything started coming up in my life, all the sin,
every sin I'd ever committed, and I've committed many. Let
me tell you many sins in my life. And there's
nothing hidden. And I'm not airing all my dirty laundry here.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
I'm not trying to. I don't want to give Satan
any credit, but I can tell you this. It all
came up.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
And it also came up when I was eighteen, when
I could have received Christ. And it was five thirty
in the morning now, and I laid there crying with
two pillars back up in my back, with an.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Unsaved wife next to me.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
And I was sitting there crying, and I said, God,
I've punched you, I've kicked you, I've cursed you, I've
used your name in vain, I've mocked you, i've embarrassed you.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
I've done all those things.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
And yet do you really, I mean, will you really
forgive me the things that I've done? And I was
about to get over on the side of my bed.
And what happened to me doesn't happen everybody. And what
happened to me happened to me. And that's why I'm
(24:14):
talking out of my shoes. Many people don't believe it anything.
Odians don't believe it. Many Thieldians don't believe in God.
God spoke to me audibly right there in the room,
and he said be strong and left eye own heart,
literally audibly.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I looked around the room. I was in total shock.
I'd never heard anything like that before.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
And I was so shocked that I reached over and
I woke my wife, just shaking her like crazy. I said, Jackie, Jackie,
did you hear what the Lord said to me?
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Did you hear that? You must understand.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Jackie had seen me go through all kinds of trips
in my life, and she just kind of looked at
me in a dark haze. That it was at five
point thirty in the morning and said, Pete, you really
have gun that's having you and she just went back
to sleep.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I was sitting there and all of a sudden, about
a year and a half ago, Uh, my wife and
I went through a terrible tragedy. I was restoring an
old Victorian home and I had just gotten back from China.
Some friends came over and when we were showing them
the house, Uh, we'd gone upstairs with 'em, and there
was no banishter. So we told our kids to, you know,
stay away from the stairs, just gonna be here second.
(25:25):
We were showing them, and as careful as we are
with our children, I'd forgotten that they didn't even really
think about it. I'd built in a little closet and
upstairs room, and in that closet was an air conditioning vent,
an old one that had been stuffed up with insulation.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
And uh uh, it really happened very quickly. Uh. They
both kind of ran in there.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
We didn't see him, and all of a sudden, it
it was like that my wife heard a a very
loud thumped and when she uh went back there, Uh,
Joshua and my little two year old.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
At the time wasn't there. I just kind of knew
what happened, and I dashed down the floor and I
went in there, and I saw my little son lying
there in a.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Pool of blood. He had landed an impact had hit
him directly in the eye is where he hit on
this part of his head. He was in a semi
conscious state, taken CPR in the past, and my wife
never did see him. I'm glad you didn't because it's
something I'll live with on my life. But anyway, I
(26:30):
picked him up and he was just a lifeless little body.
His heartbeat was so faint that I didn't know whether
he was going to make it or not. But I
rushed him to the hospital.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
I got him there and.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
There wasn't even any doctors there at this particular hospital.
The guy that was supposed to be there was off
who was a lunch or something like that, and it
just so happened. I had a Christian painter there and
a Christian carpenter, and they started praying. They found a
doctor and he came in and checked him out, and
I was in prayer in the other room. My wife
was literally away with just had lost it completely, and
(27:10):
we didn't know what was gonna happen to Joshua.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
About ten minutes later, the doctor came out.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
He happened to be an eye surgeon, and he says, Pete,
Joshua was gonna make it, and I said, thank God
for that.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
I said, that's just great.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
He says, but we've looked in his eye just very quickly,
and it looks like all the muscles of his eyes
have been of his eyes have been torn away so
I'm going back in there and check him out, and
you just waiting here, I said, find I just went
back in prayer, and my prayer wasn't that josh be healed.
My prayer was according to God's plan in Joshua's life,
(27:47):
that it just be worked out. And so about fifteen
minutes later, the doctor came back to me and he says, Pete.
He says, I really can't believe what happened. And I said,
what's that?
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Doctor?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
He says, we look in joha was eye just now,
and it's as clear as a bell. There's no contusions,
there's no there's no broken bones, his neck is there's nothing.
I mean, it's just absolutely clear. Plus the fact he's
just gonna be perfect. There's nothing wrong with him except
this massive swelling that has taken place. Well, that was
(28:22):
just a little miracle of my life. And as I
thought about this, I started reflecting back.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
On my own life.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
And it's been that way in my life hundreds upon
hundreds of times that I've literally reflected back at the
times that I really shouldn't be here, but I am here,
and I'm here for one purpose. Jesus Christ changed my life.
Money didn't do it. Women didn't do it. Friends didn't
do it. Pastors didn't do it. Wealth didn't do it.
(28:49):
Success president of being a company, owning your own business,
having your own boat. I don't have much time left,
and the time I have I'm giving to Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
And you've been listening to Pistol Pete marriage and one
of the last talks he ever gave here on this earth.
He suffered a heart attack, and he died on Tuesday,
January eighth, nineteen eighty eight, after playing a pickup basketball
game at a Pasadena, California church. He was only forty.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
We were on a break and he walked up to me, said,
focus on the family's James Dobson. I asked him how
he was feeling. He said, I feel great. He took
one step and fell, and Dobson continued quote. I tried
to do what I could, but he'd had a seizure.
That was easy to see. He was jaundice and his
(29:48):
eyes rolled back in his head. His body was rigid.
It was clear he was leaving. I called out to him,
asked him not to go, but it was much too late.
Rich died in doctor Dobson's Arms. The story of Pete
Maravich in his own words, who died on this day
(30:08):
in nineteen eighty eight. Here on our American stories.
This is our American Stories. Pistol Pete Marivitch is widely
regarded as one of the greatest players in basketball history,
also one of my personal hoops heroes. Marrivich starred in
college with the LSU Tigers while playing for his father,
head coach Press Marivich. He's the all time leading NCAAA
Division One scorer still with thirty six hundred and sixty
(00:34):
seven points, and he averaged forty four point two points
per game. All of his accomplishments were achieved before the
adoption of the three point shot and the shot clock,
and despite being able to play varsity as a freshman
under the NCAA rules. That's crazy. Marriviage played ten years
in the NBA and is considered by many to be
the best ball handler of all time. Just days before
(00:58):
his death on January nineteen eighty eight, the forty year
old Pistol Pete spoke to guests who gathered near the
pool side of Jimmy Walker's house. An NBA All Star.
We'd like to thank Vision Video for giving us special
access to this rare bonus footage you were about to
hear from their fantastic uplifting movie The pistol the birth
(01:18):
of a legend. Three to g And we're telling this
story because on this day in nineteen eighty eight, pistol
Pete Maravitch died. Here's Pete Marrivich looking back on his life,
just dazed before his death.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I grew up in Clemson, South Carolina. When I was
four years old, the only thing I ever knew was basketball.
By the time I was five years old, I was
already playing organized basketball. My parents baited me into the game,
that never forced me in. When I was seven years old,
my dad came to me and he says, Pete, he says,
I don't have any money to send you to college.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
You're gonna have to get a scholarship. If you get
a scholarship, they'll pay your way.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Only make twenty nine hundred dollars a year, and that's
she's not going to pay your way by the time
you get there. And if you're good enough, Pete, you
might even make it to the pro basketball. That's where
the greatest players play, and there's so few. And if
you get there, you might play on a team that
wins a world championship and.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
You'll get a big diamond ring.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Pete, so big and it has on their world champions,
and you'll be declared as the rest of the team,
one of the greatest at that particular time.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Not only that, Pete, you'll be able to make money.
They'll pay you for doing it.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
They'll pay you for playing something that you enjoy doing well.
From that day, I decided to commit my.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Life totally to basketball.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I was dedicated, possessed and obsessed by I was so
dedicated to it.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I'll tell you some of the things I used to do.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
We lived two and a half miles outside of town
in Clemson, South Carolina, and I used to get the
basketball and I'd dribble in all the way.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
I would not accept the ride. I wo'd dribble in with.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
My right hand and dribble back home with my left hand,
five miles a day to the gym where I'd play
eight to ten hours a day. When I finally got
a bicycle when I was about eleven years old ten
eleven years old, I learned to dribble the basketball on
my bicycle all the way in. It made a lot
of to get into town too, and I got there quicker,
and I dribbled the ball by riding the bicycle It
(03:06):
got so bizarre that my dad came to me one
day and he says, Pete, come on, get your basketball
and let's go in the car. So where are we going,
he says, I'll tell you when we get there. He
went over it, and he went on this specific highway
and there weren't many cars there, and he said, now, look,
I want you to get in the back.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
See stick yourself.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Out that back window there, and you start dribbling the ball.
I'm gonna drive at various speeds. I want to see
if you can really control this then. And so I
did that, and he'd go five, ten, fifteen miles an
hour and twenty miles an hour.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
And of course, if you realize when you're trying to.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Drive a basketball of a car or on a bicycle,
you got to throw it away out in front because
he's going and it's coming back. It really comes back quick,
along with a lot of rocks. And to see the
faces on the people that just happened to be driving by.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Was something in itself. It really was.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I used to tick the basket ball to bed with me.
I slept with a basketball till I was about thirteen
years old. I would get in bed and I'd lay
in the bed for one hour before I ever went
to sleep, and I would repeat three things fingertip control, backspin,
follow through, fingertip control, backspin, follow through as I released
it laying down.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
I was completely possessed by the game.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
I used to go around my house blindfolded, dribbling the
ball because I knew whe everything was, of course, through
the dismay of my mother, sometimes I didn't.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Then I knew how to drill the ball very fast.
Out of the house.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I used to get the basketball and I would dribble
out in thunderstorms, lightning, everything else you couldn't even see.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
I used to sneak out of my back window. I'd
go to this little spot where it was a mud hole.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
It was kind of a real hard mud, and I'd
start drilling the balls of mud and everything splashed up
on me and literally scared to death because of the
thunder and lightning. Because I felt like if I could
dribble in that mud and that water and everything else
control it, I could certainly do it on a court
when someone was guarding me. See, I was so committed
to the game of basketball. In fact, from the time
I was five years old, I was seventeen years old,
(04:58):
I played over twenty thousand I hours of basketball. And
the March Readers Digest they had a story in there
about television and how it affects young people's minds or
any person. It wasn't four against television. It just says
how it affects one's mind. And it said that the
average person by the time he's twenty years old sees
twenty thousand hours of television. And I kind of paralleled
(05:18):
that with my life, twenty thousand hours of people watching television.
I've spent twenty thousand hours of hard sweat playing the
game of basketball. When I was twelve years old, it
was my first time I ever played in a regular
game for junior varsity. I made the junior varsity when
I was twelve and I was at thirteen, I started
on my high school team and played five years of
(05:39):
high school basketball. I was four foot nine and a
half and at that time, a twelve A reporter came
up to me after the game, and I used to
shoot the basketball from down here because I was too
weak to shoot it from up here, and so I
used to take the ball and take it and release
it like this and this reporter saw him and he says,
what looks like this guy is drawing a pistol and
(06:00):
he wrote that up and that name is stick Stuck.
Ever since I just threw that in, I know that
doesn't interest you at all, but I just wanted to
say that. But he asked me. After the game, he
came up and interviewed me. I was my first interview
I ever had, and I wish it had been my last.
But he said, what are you going to do when
you grow up? Crystol Pete? And I said, well, I'm
gonna play pro basketball. I'm gonna be on a team
(06:22):
that wins a world championship to get a diamond ring
and make a million dollars. And he literally fell off
his chair with laughter, and I said, what are you
laughing about it? He said, a million dollars. They don't
make that kind of money. This was in the fifties,
and he was right. But I just felt like at
some point in my life I would My early church
life was absolutely probably zero. I was not raised in
(06:42):
a Christian home. I was raised in a church home.
I was raised with telling Pete, you got to go
to church. It's good to go to church. You gotta
you need church. But when I got into church, I
didn't never hear anything. I never heard who Jesus Christ
was when I was young because I didn't want to hear.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
See.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I was sitting there and literally count ticks in my
head one, two, three up to a minute, and that
would go for an hour until I got out of there.
I felt that if I was in this church for
an hour, somebody in Philadelphia, La Boston or New York
was playing basketball, and when it came down to get that.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Scholarship, I would not get it.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
See, And I progressed on into my teenage years.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
When I was fourteen years old, was the first time
I ever had.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
My first taste of alcohol. I had a beer at
fourteen years of age on the steps of the Methodist
church in Clemson, South Carolina.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
And I liked it. I really did like it. I
liked it a lot.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
If it's something I can tell you young people here tonight,
it's this, don't ever take that first drink, and don't
ever take that first drug, because it'll never be your
last and it'll lead to destruction. Because that's literally what
almost happened in my own life. Ninety eight percent of
all people in jails today started with that first drink.
Eighty five percent of over five hundred thousand people in
(07:58):
correctional institutions day committed their crimes, but only the influence
of a mind altering substance.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Drugs are alcohol.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
And all of a sudden, this tremendous commitment that I
had and everything else, I kind of went down the drain.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I didn't have it anymore.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
And I'd played so much up until that time when
I was fourteen fifteen going to sixteen seventeen, but all
of a sudden, I had time on the weekends to
do other things. I saw the opposite sex for the
first time in life. You see, I was completely obsessed
with basketball. I didn't do whatever other people did. My
god was basketball. Their god was sex, alcohol and whatever else.
(08:38):
But I didn't see any of that until I was fourteen.
And then my eyes opened up and I enjoyed it,
and I started getting into it. And then that toe
hold became a foothold, and the foothold became a stronghold,
and that stronghold became an entire possession.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
I'm not scared to tell you here. I was an alcoholic.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I can't get people to write that up because I've
never been to a clinic or anything, and all my
friends drink just like I did, and they were alcoholics too.
I enjoyed it a great deal because there's a great
pleasure in sin. There's a lot of pleasure in it.
Because there wasn't nobody would do it. When I was
eighteen years old, I was asked to go out to
take Arrowhead out in San Bernardino, California, to a campus
(09:16):
crusade for christ. They asked me to come out there
and do what you just saw here, what was called showtime.
They said, would you come out here and do your
clinic Pete. I said, well, sure, that'd be great. I'll
bring one of my friends and we'll just come out
there California.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
I've never been there. It'll be fun. So we got
in the car and I was just.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Reaching my eighteenth birthday, literally right before what was to
be called the Pistol pe Era in Southeastern Conference basketball.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
And you're listening to Pistol Pete Marrivitch reflecting on his
own life, his days before his tragic death and a
premature death at that. When we come back more of
it's remarkable talk by Pistol Pete who died on this
day in eighteen eighty eight. Here on our American stories,
(10:09):
and we're back with our American stories, and way to
continue with Pistol Pete Maravich, who died on this day
in eighteen eighty eight, one of the old time greatest
players and an idol of mine. I can't tell you
how many hours I spent watching him on television, the
rare times he would come on, and then trying to
copy every single thing he did. Let's go back to
(10:31):
Pistol Pete.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And so I drove out there and we partied all
the way out, and we had fun, and we chased girls,
and we just were in every bar we could find
and everything else.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Took us three or four days to get out there.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
And as I drove up on this campus, I noticed
that there were people sitting around praying and holding hands
under trees and things of this nature.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
And I became very embarrassed.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I didn't want any part of that, and I told
my friend, I said, hey, we got to hear you
get out of here. I'm gonna this clinic and get out.
These people are nuts, I mean, what are they smoking?
And put that beer down. We don't want to, you know,
we don't want to see him with this, with this beer.
So I checked into this place and it was for
three days, and I asked, HM, when am I supposed
to do my clinic? And they said, well, people, we're
(11:14):
not sure yet, but if you just bear with us,
we're gonna have you over here with this group. And
I said, what do you mean, what am I going
to do? Is it's well nothing, there's nothing to do.
We'll just put you here, would you would be all right?
And I said okay. So I stayed with this group.
My friend went with another group. Now for three days,
I finally heard who Jesus Christ was. I wasn't concerned
about that. To me, it was just a story. It
(11:35):
was a story. It was nice, that's nice. But after
the end of three days there there was no impact
on my life.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
We went out to the beach.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Bill Battle, who was an All American football player and
with a bicep as large as my thigh, said we're
going out to the beach.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
I'm taking this group with me. We're going to witness
for Christ. And I said, what do you mean witness?
What is this Bill?
Speaker 2 (11:57):
What do you mean witness? What were you talking about
you come along, Pete. We just want to show what
we do here. So I went along with him and
we went out on the beaches out there in California
beaches and he he goes up to the worst looking group.
This is back during the sixties. This is the most
revolutionary time, the rebellious time in our history. Probably it's
(12:20):
led to so much of the rebellion today. And yet
he went up to the worst looking group. Guy had tattoos,
all of his own hair down here, was smoking a joint, drinking.
There was about four or five of them. They were
mean looking, ugly, they didn't smell very good everything. And
I stayed wait in the background. But you know, the
Lord has a way to use people. You see, he
went up to this guy who was the meanest looking guy.
(12:41):
Right behind his head, he says, you know something, I
would really like to share something with you folks.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
And this guy was literally going to turn around and
punch him. I not because he turned around.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
He said, look, go right ahead, because that ad by
said was right in his face. Now, if anything impressed me,
it was that that did impress me. I said, Wow,
how God gets people's attention, It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
So they witnessed, and I don't remember. I think some
of them left right away.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
They said, oh you Jesus freates and all this kind
of stuff, and I just kind of turned my head.
I didn't want to know part of it. At the
end of three days there was a thousand kids and
I was part of it. And Bill Bright, who's founder
of the Camp scru Sad, gave a message much like
Billy Graham had an invitation for people to come receive Christ.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Then he had him to come publicly and receive him.
Lo and Behold. My friend was sitting next to me.
He got up. I said, what are you doing, says Pete.
I don't know what to tell you. I really don't
know what to tell you. I've just received Christ into
my life. I said, ken, hey man, ken' you something
you ate or something?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
And I grabbed him by the arm. I literally tried
to steal away his salvation. I said, don't go up there,
the embarrassing me. I remember saying that, and he pulled
away and he went up there. He says, you don't understand.
I said, no, I don't. And he walked up there.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
And I remember sitting there and saying, well, you're not
gonna get God.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I'm gonna play pro basketball being a world championship team
and make a million dollars.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Boy asks what I want in life.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
But you know, as I've reflected over that time, how
many times I've cried and wish that I'd received Christ
in my life, then you know why, because God had
sent me there for a purpose, not to do a clinic.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
I never did one. Nobody even asked me, but He
put me there for one reason.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Pete, come home now, Come home now, because you're about
to embark on a tremendous amount of personal tragedy and
destruction in your life.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
And it doesn't have to be that way, but you
can choose that way and you don't have to. And
I want to on into college, and I did a
lot of things in college.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I've set something like around fifty basketball records from high school, college,
and pro. The amount of trophies and awards and plaques
that I have, the amount of honorary mayorship and keys
the cities that I have, except the time when I
go to those cities and try to get the keys,
they don't ever give them to me. It could literally, really,
(15:08):
I could go around this entire pool area. Now, I
have a trophy from nineteen seventy two in a box.
It's never been opening. Six foot five inches and six
foot five one quarter inch tall, the exact.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Height of me. I've never seen it. I've never opened
the box. But they're all stored away. They don't really
do anything for me.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
But I've had all those trophies, awards, I've had popularity,
I've had fame. I had a tremendous amount of fame
back in the sixties, tremendous amount of popularity everywhere when
we played before over right at a million people in
college in three years, and that's pretty good.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
And I had all this adulation and people wrote me.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
I got thousands of letters a week from fans. We
idolize you, Pete Merriwich, You're my idol.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
You're this, You're that. And I wasn't a role model
at all, not at all. I wasn't a role model
for young people at all. None. Zero.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
And then after my college and I was all of
American and I was I'm the leading scorer of all
time in college basketball.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
It'll be broken someday, but I'm the.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Leading scorer averaged over forty four points a game for
a three year period. Just hold just all kinds of records.
My high school records are still hell. I still hold
the record for the.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
All Star game.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I scored forty seven points in the East West High
School All Star Game back in nineteen sixty five. That's
still there, it hasn't been broken. And some great players
have come through there. And then I went into pros,
you see. And I had a lot of fun in college,
a lot of fun, too much fun. In fact, I
was in nine accidents in college and walked away from
every one of them.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Not only that.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
One time I was coming home from putting on a
clinic in Pennsylvania and I drove seven hundred miles and
I stopped for the night.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
It was a halfway point, and I went down.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
To a local pub ocle little bar, sat in there
and had about two beers, and a young lady came over.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
To me and said, how are you, sweetie? I said,
I'm just fine. He said, you mind if I sit
down here? I said, well, suit yourself. So I was
sitting there.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
I wasn't there at two minutes when a guy came
up to me, about six foot five, about two hundred
and seventy pounds, said, what are you doing with my girl?
Speaker 3 (17:26):
He said, I'm not doing anything with her, sir. I'm
just sitting here. I'm just having this cold beer here.
I don't want any trouble. I didn't, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
And he started pushing me. He started hit me in
the shoulder. And I grew up as a kid knowing
that you never backed down from anybody. I don't care
what the odds. I wasn't going back down. And I
told him to get his hands off of me, and
all this, and before long, one thing led to another,
and they.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Said, y'all get out of here. If you're gonna fight.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
He said, yeah, come on, So I said fine. So
I got up and I went out quickly, and I
made myself through the crowd and I got outside and
I stayed behind the door, and I was really gonna
get this guy when he came out.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
But he never came. Of course. I didn't wait there
about two minutes.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
And he didn't come, you see, And so I said,
I'm better get out of here, and I left, and
I walked out in the parking lot. As I was
walking in the back of the parking lot, I tore
it up. I saw a telephone booth where I was
gonna call a taxi to go to a holiday in
where I was staying. As I was walking out, I
heard this guy came out and yelled to me, and
(18:29):
little did I know that another guy had gone around
the other side, and they both had blackjacks, which I
didn't know.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
And the guy.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
The old story is that the guy just literally they
just hit me from behind and beat me up pretty good.
As I laid there on that parking lot that night,
that girl came up and I was all blood, and
she took a twenty five automatic pistol and she put
it in my mouth and cocked it, and she said,
you're a dead man. Pistol Pete, how about that? Were
(19:00):
laying there, and from the depths of my heart, I said, yeah,
kill me, because then I'll have peace.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
And you've been listening to Pistol Pete Marrivig, who died
on this day in eighteen eighty eight, and he gave
this speech not long before his death, indeed, just days.
More of Pistol Pete Marrivitch's life story, his last story
that he told in front of a large audience. Here
on our American Stories, and we continue with our American
(19:42):
stories and with pistol Pete Marrivich's story who died on
this day in eighteen eighty eight, one of the last
ones he told in his life, this one just days
before he passed.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
But you know something, there's a god up there that
overruled Satan that night too.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
He overruled him. And I know that.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
And I went into the pros and I signed the
largest contract in the history of sports, not basketball sports
at the time, it made the Guinness Book of Records.
It lasted thirty days. They started pouring out a lot
of big money back then. And I searched all through
the nineteen seventies for what meaning there was to life.
(20:28):
I had to know the meaning, what was the meaning?
And I got involved in all kinds of different things.
I was involved in yoga and TM, I was involved
very heavily in ufology, philosophy.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
I was involved in different religions, Hinduism especially. I was
involved in everything.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
But the thing about it is, none of it really
satisfied me. They were just all brief interludes of satisfaction,
much like my life was brief interludes of just ego, gratification, satisfaction.
And all through that time in fact, in nineteen seventy six,
I was going to live to be one hundred and
fifty years old.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
And I got very heavily in a nutrition because I was.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Into Hinduism and I was into the karma and all
these other types of situations.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
And I became a vegetarian and then a fruitarian.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And a macrobotic and a mini dose and a MAXI
dosed on vitamins and I fasted twenty five days, and
I sat in all kinds of different positions, and I
was searching for life, for friends. I was really searching
for life because my life had no meaning at all.
My life had absolutely no meaning at all. And at
each one of these stops, each one of these stops,
I had to have something else. They just didn't satisfy me.
(21:35):
In nineteen eighty I quit basketball.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
I just quit. I walked away from it because of
immaturity and because of the fact that I just got
tired of it all. I just got tired of it.
I got tired of my life, and I became a recluse.
For about two years. I sat in my home.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
We had our first son, Jason, he was only one
and a half years old, and I was set there
for hours at a time, trying to teach him seven
and eight year old puzzles because I want I wanted
to my son Jason to have what I didn't. I
wanted him to have a high intellect. See, I wanted
him to be an intelligent person. I want him to
be able to go to the right parties and say
the right things. I thought that was important. I really
(22:13):
thought that was important. And so my wife used to
come to me and she says, Pete, you really need
to go see someone, because you're really flipping out.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
I said, what do you mean. She says, you haven't
left his house in two weeks. I said, yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Know.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
I brought to the garage and sof but I was
really lost.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
And in nineteen eighty two I went to bed one night.
It was like any other night. Pete marriviage had all
the material things you could want. I used to carry
around five thousand dollars in my pocket and cash in twenties.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
I never cared any change. But I had all that stuff,
and none of it ever satisfied. I mean not the money,
not the wealth, not the success.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And I laid there in vad and I couldn't sleep,
and I didn't understand it, and all of a sudden,
everything started coming up in my life, all the sin,
every sin I'd ever committed, and I've committed many. Let
me tell you many sins in my life. And there's
nothing hidden. And I'm not airing all my dirty laundry here.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
I'm not trying to. I don't want to give Satan
any credit, but I can tell you this. It all
came up.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
And it also came up when I was eighteen, when
I could have received Christ. And it was five thirty
in the morning now, and I laid there crying with
two pillars back up in my back, with an.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Unsaved wife next to me.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
And I was sitting there crying, and I said, God,
I've punched you, I've kicked you, I've cursed you, I've
used your name in vain, I've mocked you, i've embarrassed you.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
I've done all those things.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
And yet do you really, I mean, will you really
forgive me the things that I've done? And I was
about to get over on the side of my bed.
And what happened to me doesn't happen everybody. And what
happened to me happened to me. And that's why I'm
(24:14):
talking out of my shoes. Many people don't believe it anything.
Odians don't believe it. Many Thieldians don't believe in God.
God spoke to me audibly right there in the room,
and he said be strong and left eye own heart,
literally audibly.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I looked around the room. I was in total shock.
I'd never heard anything like that before.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
And I was so shocked that I reached over and
I woke my wife, just shaking her like crazy. I said, Jackie, Jackie,
did you hear what the Lord said to me?
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Did you hear that? You must understand.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Jackie had seen me go through all kinds of trips
in my life, and she just kind of looked at
me in a dark haze. That it was at five
point thirty in the morning and said, Pete, you really
have gun that's having you and she just went back
to sleep.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I was sitting there and all of a sudden, about
a year and a half ago, Uh, my wife and
I went through a terrible tragedy. I was restoring an
old Victorian home and I had just gotten back from China.
Some friends came over and when we were showing them
the house, Uh, we'd gone upstairs with 'em, and there
was no banishter. So we told our kids to, you know,
stay away from the stairs, just gonna be here second.
(25:25):
We were showing them, and as careful as we are
with our children, I'd forgotten that they didn't even really
think about it. I'd built in a little closet and
upstairs room, and in that closet was an air conditioning vent,
an old one that had been stuffed up with insulation.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
And uh uh, it really happened very quickly. Uh. They
both kind of ran in there.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
We didn't see him, and all of a sudden, it
it was like that my wife heard a a very
loud thumped and when she uh went back there, Uh,
Joshua and my little two year old.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
At the time wasn't there. I just kind of knew
what happened, and I dashed down the floor and I
went in there, and I saw my little son lying
there in a.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Pool of blood. He had landed an impact had hit
him directly in the eye is where he hit on
this part of his head. He was in a semi
conscious state, taken CPR in the past, and my wife
never did see him. I'm glad you didn't because it's
something I'll live with on my life. But anyway, I
(26:30):
picked him up and he was just a lifeless little body.
His heartbeat was so faint that I didn't know whether
he was going to make it or not. But I
rushed him to the hospital.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
I got him there and.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
There wasn't even any doctors there at this particular hospital.
The guy that was supposed to be there was off
who was a lunch or something like that, and it
just so happened. I had a Christian painter there and
a Christian carpenter, and they started praying. They found a
doctor and he came in and checked him out, and
I was in prayer in the other room. My wife
was literally away with just had lost it completely, and
(27:10):
we didn't know what was gonna happen to Joshua.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
About ten minutes later, the doctor came out.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
He happened to be an eye surgeon, and he says, Pete,
Joshua was gonna make it, and I said, thank God
for that.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
I said, that's just great.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
He says, but we've looked in his eye just very quickly,
and it looks like all the muscles of his eyes
have been of his eyes have been torn away so
I'm going back in there and check him out, and
you just waiting here, I said, find I just went
back in prayer, and my prayer wasn't that josh be healed.
My prayer was according to God's plan in Joshua's life,
(27:47):
that it just be worked out. And so about fifteen
minutes later, the doctor came back to me and he says, Pete.
He says, I really can't believe what happened. And I said,
what's that?
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Doctor?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
He says, we look in joha was eye just now,
and it's as clear as a bell. There's no contusions,
there's no there's no broken bones, his neck is there's nothing.
I mean, it's just absolutely clear. Plus the fact he's
just gonna be perfect. There's nothing wrong with him except
this massive swelling that has taken place. Well, that was
(28:22):
just a little miracle of my life. And as I
thought about this, I started reflecting back.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
On my own life.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
And it's been that way in my life hundreds upon
hundreds of times that I've literally reflected back at the
times that I really shouldn't be here, but I am here,
and I'm here for one purpose. Jesus Christ changed my life.
Money didn't do it. Women didn't do it. Friends didn't
do it. Pastors didn't do it. Wealth didn't do it.
(28:49):
Success president of being a company, owning your own business,
having your own boat. I don't have much time left,
and the time I have I'm giving to Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
And you've been listening to Pistol Pete marriage and one
of the last talks he ever gave here on this earth.
He suffered a heart attack, and he died on Tuesday,
January eighth, nineteen eighty eight, after playing a pickup basketball
game at a Pasadena, California church. He was only forty.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
We were on a break and he walked up to me, said,
focus on the family's James Dobson. I asked him how
he was feeling. He said, I feel great. He took
one step and fell, and Dobson continued quote. I tried
to do what I could, but he'd had a seizure.
That was easy to see. He was jaundice and his
(29:48):
eyes rolled back in his head. His body was rigid.
It was clear he was leaving. I called out to him,
asked him not to go, but it was much too late.
Rich died in doctor Dobson's Arms. The story of Pete
Maravich in his own words, who died on this day
(30:08):
in nineteen eighty eight. Here on our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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