Simmons on Maravich. Yes, it's good.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070124

 

Quite good column.

My earliest remembrances of college basketball are of seeing Pistol with LSU on some small independent station which showed the college game of the week. He was truly a larger-than-life entity.

I know as well as anyone that it's not advisable to deal in absolutes. But I'm willing to wager that NOBODY was ever raised the way Pete Maravich was.

 

Marinovich? I know enough of that story from way back to know it was pretty nuts.

I'll read 50 pages of the Kreigel book. See if it bores me to shit or not.

 

That is a very good point, Alma. That was an intense situation, too.

But from reading the SI excerpts, it really seemed like Pete had a basketball all but surgically attached to his hand from the age of six months on.

 

Greg Jefferies is the other athlete who comes to mind.

I remember that game of week also - Like Simmons father you always hoped it was LSU. I remember they had a center by name of Danny Hester who was not a bad player

 

Hasn't there already been a movie made about Pete? Or at least Pete as a kid? I know I've seen it.

 

It's funny ... the two college teams that I can remember I'd drop everything to watch were LSU with Maravich ... and LSU with Shaq, Stanley Roberts and Chris Jackson.

 

I liked Purdue with Rick Mount and Herm Gilliam - Also Jacksonville with Artis Gillmore and ND with John Shuemate.

 

Yes, I was thinking of that, too.

It's called "Pistol: The Birth of a Legend" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102674/), and it's got Adam Guier as an eighth-grade Pete playing for his high school team. Press is played by Nick Benedict.

It's an interesting film -- but to keep with the Prefontaine comparision, there is definitely room for a "Without Limits"-type film about Maravich. There is a terrific film about Pete that hasn't been made yet.

 

Now, I usually fall in line with Alma. But, Alma, or someone, plz explain how that column is "good." The stinking lede devolves into gee-whiz/oh-golly with "insights" lifted from the biographies to relieve the alleged writer of the miniscule effort needed to come up with a single original thought or piece of reporting that explains Maravich the man or player. It's tripe.

 

I'm just shocked that he knew who Steve Prefontaine was, even if he completely missed the point of "Without Limits" by saying Pre only finished fourth in '72.

 

how old is Simmons ?