Something that was not mentioned during the panel discussion about Pete Maravich in Natchitoches at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame museum last Thursday night was a unique picture in the “Showtime: LSU’s Spectacular Pistol Pete” exhibit that celebrates the man’s legacy.
It’s a rare picture of Maravich smiling.
John Musemeche, the longtime photographer from Baton Rouge whose work is featured in the exhibit, explained Monday how he captured that special shot. It was during the time Maravich was enjoying a record-setting NCAA college basketball career at LSU, and Musemeche and a friend who was a big LSU fan were with Maravich at Foxy’s Health Studio in Baton Rouge.
“We spent three days with him doing some photo shoots,” said Musemeche, then a sportswriter and photographer and “low man on the totem pole” for the sports staff of the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate. “Pete liked to go to Foxy’s to work out because nobody made a big deal about him being there.”
Musemeche told Pete he needed to get some “head shots.”
“You know, Pete,” Musemeche said, “I’ve never gotten a great picture of you smiling.”
Maravich answered, “It’s kind of hard to sit there and smile.”
Understand, Maravich, as nearly supernatural as his basketball skills and showmanship were, was not given to smiling easily. He already had a hardscrabble life with lots of injuries and troubles – some self-induced – and he forever nurtured an intense, serious focus on becoming the best, most entertaining basketball player there ever was.
“So I proceeded to tell some really bad jokes, and he says, ‘You’re really trying’ hard,’” said Musemeche, “and I said, ‘I guess I’m not a big shot like you,’ and with that he flashed a big smile, and I caught it. That’s the way he really acted when he was out of the glare of all the cameras.”
One of the attractions at the LSHOF event last week was an eight-minute documentary on Pistol Pete Maravich by 46-year-old filmmaker and Ohio native Drew Tewell that featured Musemeche. The documentary “We Were Fans” placed second at a recent international film festival.
Tewell, who resided in Baton Rouge from 2014 until about a month-and-a-half ago before returning home to the Columbus, Ohio area, said in a phone call Monday he has been developing a full-length movie about Maravich for the last 10 years.
“It’s a biopic, covering a good portion of his life from his childhood to after he retired,” said Tewell, noting his movie will focus mostly on Maravich’s 10 years in the National Basketball Association but with attention, too, on his childhood and his time at LSU. “I finished the script about six years ago. I talked to an actor I met while working on another movie, Damon Lipari, about playing the role of Pete.
“He looks exactly like Pete,” said Tewell of the 46-year-old Lipari, a Louisiana native of Patterson. “He’s a little shorter, but he played basketball through high school. He went to LSU and was going to play basketball but got the acting bug and followed that path instead.”
Tewell couldn’t say when the movie would be released because production hasn’t yet started. “We’re trying to find investors, and we’re trying to find a well-known actor, possibly to play Press Maravich (Pete’s father and coach at LSU) to help draw a crowd.”
I think investors would be wise to sign on to the Maravich movie project. I don’t know of another Louisiana athlete, past or present, who has such an enduring grip on the Bayou State as someone who never ceases to amaze and inspire, even during football season.
In truth, his stretch of magnetism reaches well beyond Louisiana. Bob Dylan, for heaven’s sake, wrote in his memoir how he idolized Pete Maravich when the Pistol was playing professional basketball in New Orleans. Magic Johnson admitted he “stole” some of Maravich’s moves in his “showtime” as a basketball legend.
An autographed basketball from his 68-point scoring night for the New Orleans Jazz in 1977 against the New York Knicks sold for $131,450 in a 2009 Heritage auction.
And Californians cannot forget him since he died at age 40 in their state on that fateful day – Jan. 5, 1988 — in Pasadena, Calif.
On a basketball court.
During a pickup basketball game.
He had flown from his home then in Covington, La., to tape a segment on evangelical author James Dobson’s radio show. He and Dobson and some others played that pickup game in the morning before the scheduled afternoon taping.
Dobson said Maravich’s last words, less than a minute before he collapsed and died due to a congenital heart defect, were: “I feel great.”
Considering in his final years he got his hard-driving, hard-cussing father to convert to the Christian faith before Press died in 1987, and he repeatedly said he wanted to be remembered not as a basketball player but as a Christian, I can only guess why in the final minute of his life he felt the urge to say – with a smile, no doubt — “I feel great.”
The translation, from 2 Timothy 4:7-8: “ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”
Contact Bob at btompkins1225@gmail.com