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Simmons on Maravich. Yes, it's good.

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Alma, Jan 24, 2007.

  1. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    Yup, write. Dead on. That may be the third team I'd drop everything to watch.

    To see that Shaq-Roberts-Jackson LSU team, few ever would have believed that Roberts and Jackson would have had the NBA careers they did. Jackson especially. He had his NBA moments, but as a collegian, he looked for all the world like the next great scoring guard.
     
  2. There's something about sports memories that stick out more than other childhood events.

    I have very vivid memories of playing tee-ball, and exactly how I got a 1980 World Series ball from Clint Hurdle when I was 7 but I couldn't even tell you what color my mom's hair was without looking at a photograph, heck I've seen dozens from that era and I still can't remember.

    Heck I wish I could clean out some of these baseball statistics from my head so I could retain some of the stuff my wife says but it never happens.
     
  3. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    I have some vivid sports memories when I was younger than 10. But they are selective memories, involving the teams and players I rooted for and games I attended. I don't remember everything sports-related from when I was that age. Nor could anyone. It's why even though I remember Pistol Pete from when I was a kid, I don't have vivid memories about him. Most of what I know came from stuff I saw when I was older.
     
  4. PopeDirkBenedict

    PopeDirkBenedict Active Member

    Ragu, what you are saying supports Simmons -- if you had Celtics season tix and saw Maravich several times, don't you think you might have memories of him?
     
  5. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    I'm no great Simmons fan, understand. But I liked this piece, and appreciated this analysis:

    "Stick The Pistol in the modern era and he would be the most polarizing figure in sports, someone who combined T.O.'s insanity, A-Rod's devotion to stats and Nash's flair for delighting the crowds. Skip Bayless would blow a blood vessel on "Cold Pizza" screaming about Pistol's ball-hogging. The "SportsCenter" guys would create cute catchphrases for his no-looks. Bloggers would chronicle his bizarre comments and ghastly hairdos. Fantasy owners would revere him as if he were LaDainian Tomlinson or Johan Santana. Nike would launch a line of Pistol shoes. He'd be the subject of more homemade YouTube."

    I think it's accurate, and an intriguing commentary on how the media devours athletes today.
     
  6. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member


    I don't know about it being accurate. We had fewer forms of media back then, true, but Maravich was a dominant figure in what we did have. Playing in freaking Atlanta, for crissakes, he had a national TV ad for Vitalis hairspray. I was 11 when he made his NBA debut and every kid in my town, a long way from Baton Rouge or Atlanta, was throwing behind-the-back passes on driveway courts, including me, much to the dismay of my dad, who wanted me to learn basketball the right way instead of like that "ballhog hippie." I had a subscription to Sport magazine and can clearly remember an article before his rookie year suggesting he'd ruin a solid, veteran team that featured Lou Hudson, who did outscore Maravich. He was huge. And you have to remember, at the time the NBA had a young Alcindor, Wilt, Jerry West, Dave Bing, Connie Hawkins, Earl Monroe, Elgin Baylor, Oscar Robertson and that great Knicks team with flashy Clyde Frazier -- I daresay more Hall of Famers than we currently see. And still Maravich was the buzz.
     
  7. Shaggy

    Shaggy Guest

    When it comes to certain subjects, we're just like those constantly-pissy fans we are so sick of from our beat.
     
  8. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    Or, he'd just be Jason Williams. He'd be nothing special, because everybody does what he did, except better (and Magic and Jordan were the current generation's inspiration, not Pete). It's not a matter of "what if he were around today?" It's a matter of "what if the mass media of today were around back in Pete's day?" He'd be less in that scenario, too, because today's media move on to another subject pretty quickly if the subject of its attention doesn't win at least a little bit.
     
  9. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

    Different climate in another way, too. There were hardly any TV stations beyond the three networks, so the audience was less fragmented. When ABC did its Sunday NBA Game of the Week, every sports fan was watching. I never missed it.
     
  10. JayFarrar

    JayFarrar Well-Known Member

    I vaguely remember Maravich from his playing days. I'm a year younger than Simmons, but what I really remember is that video he did. The one how to play basketball the Pistol Pete way.
    It achived almost cult-like status among the basketball players who at least got to see it. Most coaches had it destroyed when they saw the old flip the ball from half-court behind your back and against the backboard so a teammate can take the pass as an alley-oop play, which I actually saw used in an AAU game once.
    It was just amazing. All these ball-handling tricks and these pass where you used angles.
    I wonder if either book touched on the video
     
  11. spnited

    spnited Active Member

    By the standard Simmons usually sets, that qualifies as a good column. Really, it was mediocre at best.

    As for other issues addressed here, I have very vivid memories of going to Ebbets Field as a five-year-old; of the Dodgers winning the 1955 World Series, when I was 6; going to my first World Series game in 1956 (sitting in the upper deck, right-field foul line at Yankee Stadium, two days before Larson's perfect game, 5-3 Yanks over Dodgers, Enos freakin' Slaughter hitting a home run in the 7th inning to clinch the game) at age 7. So I'll give Simmons his childhood memories.

    I also am old enough to remember Pistol Pete putting on a show in the NIT at MSG in '71 (somebody mentioned Danny Hester, a decent big man who would have been better if he ever learned how to catch Pete's passes).
    And I have my Pistol memory from the 1973 NBA All-Star Game in old Chicago Stadium, when there was none of the hoopla that goes with all-star games today. Saturday afternoon open team "practices" when Pistol put on a balll-handling and trick-shot display that had every other player in the game just watching and gasping at the things the man could do with a basketball.
     
  12. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    dools, that's not even close. A Jason Williams can't even be mentioned in the same breath with Maravich, simply because Maravich was not just a ballhandling wizard, he was one of the most remarkable perimeter shooters ever. His package was much more complete ... offensively, at least.
     
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