The ” PISTOL”

A MEMORY OF THE GREATEST SHOWMAN OF BASKETBALL

JUNE 29, 2023

The time was December, 1987.  It was the holiday season in Oklahoma City and for me, a few days after Christmas, my routine was to attend the All-College basketball tournament that was a staple in my city for decades.  In fact, the tournament was hailed as the oldest holiday tournament in the nation.  Truth is, it was older than the NCAA National tournament and the National Invitational Tournament which crowed national champion in the sport of college basketball.  It was the best tournament during the holiday season and brough in some of the best teams in the country.  And for me, it was my chance to view 12 games in three days with some of the best college basketball teams around.

For the 1987 tournament, the All-College was going to honor Pete Maravich, the LSU and NBA all-star and put him in the All-College Hall of Fame. He played on the Tigers 1968-1969 team that won the All-College tournament that year.  He would join some of the greats of the past tournaments, that included Bill Russell, Elgin Baylor, Bob Lanier, and Calvin Murphy among others.  A complete list can be found below.

As I sat in my seat at the “Incomparable Myriad” (13,400), with maybe two thousand fans in attendance, half time of the first of two first round games had come to pass.  All of a sudden my brother-in-law Dale, sitting next to me, spotted the “great one” that was to be honored at the intermission between games one and two that night.  Dale said that he was going over (a few sections) and visit with Mr. Maravich and tell him that we were their twenty years earlier to watch his LSU Tigers win the tournament.  Being an eight team tournament, each team got to play three games in three days in Oklahoma City.  Dale said come with me and we both can say hello.  It would only take a second or two.

I told Dale to go meet him and I would just stay and watch the interaction.  Dale went over and spent every bit of the halftime and most of the 2nd half of the first game in his visit with “The Pistol”.  For me, it was sad that Mr. Maravich was sitting by himself and no one in the crowd, what there was of it, did not go and say HEY to the GREATEST SHOWMAN IN COLLGE BASKEBALL that every laced them up. But thanks to Dale as he did. 

Dale told me that Pete Maravich was a gracious man and he was happy to visit and hear Dale tell his story of seeing him play in Oklahoma City.  Dale said he was, in fact, a modest man, and really did not want to play up his basketball achievements and was totally honored to come back to OKC to get the honor of being put in the All-College Hall of Fame.  He did say that his LSU Tigers, coached by his dad Press, won just one team college trophy in those three years, the All-College Championship, and that trophy was a most valued one the LSU Men’s trophy case at the time. He said that the three wins were significant for the school and the basketball program at the time.

Of all the games I have viewed, in my lifetime, any sport, the three games that I was able to watch “Pistol” Pete Maravich were the most exciting, including any championship games (many) in any sport.

Pete Maravich, in January 1988, just a week after the All-College, died of a heart ailment playing basketball.  I will never forgive myself for not spending time, even for just a few minutes, with THE PISTOL that night in OKC.

Players of the past:

All-College Basketball Classic All-Time Greats
Elgin Baylor, Seattle
Cornell Green, Utah State
K.C. Jones, San Francisco
Bob Kurland, Oklahoma State
Bob Lanier, St. Bonaventure
Karl Malone, Louisiana Tech
Pete Maravich, Louisiana State University
Slater Martin, Texas
Calvin Murphy, Niagra
Robert Parish, Centenary
Bill Russell, San Fransisco
Frank Selvy, Furman
Arnold Short, OCU
Dave Stalllworth, Wichita State
Wayman Tisdale, Oklahoma
Nate Thurmond, Bowling Green

All-College Basketball Classic Hall Of Fame
Henry P. Iba
Ray Meyer
Jay Simon
Arnold Short
Jim Roederer
Bob Kurland
Abe Lemons
Paul Hansen
John “Taps” Gallagher
Glenn Boyer
Bruce Drake
Cornell Green
Pete Maravich
Stan Watts
Wayman Tisdale
Bill Russell
Thurman Medley
Stanley Draper Jr.
John Philbin
Billy Tubbs
Eddie Sutton
Bill Hancock

All-College Basketball Classic (archive.org)