The Pistol and me

 A few words on my favorite player of my youth in basketball-Pistol Pete Maravich.
I caught the Pistol's act during his last year in Atlanta and even though I think of Pistol as an Atlanta Hawk, his years in New Orleans were most of the games that I saw him play in.

The Pistol was such an exciting and talented player, but because he wasn't the biggest guy in the game, it seemed achievable to be the Pistol on the schoolyard court.
None of the local players could believably be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Julius Erving, but you could be the Pistol.
I mean living in rural Maryland where you had to be lucky to have full five on five was not exactly the Rucker League in New York City, but I usually played against older guys and held my own.

Reading the books on the Pistol just goes to show his dedication to the game and other phases too.
Phases that at one time or another included Vegetarianism, UFO's, Martial Arts and Christianity and he was almost tunneled into all of them with a sharp focus.
As a fat man, I wish I could establish that kind of focus on getting some of this off of me!

The ball handling skills were amazing and lord knows I tried to do them, but other than the occasional being able to get the ball to spin on my finger for a while, I didn't generally do well with them.
I actually own a DVD copy of "Pistol Pete's Homework Basketball".Maybe someday I can work with my grandchildren with those drills and work with them at the game.
I missed out on that with my kids.
Too immature to do the teaching with Ryan and Rachel has never been interested in the game at all, I lost out on a lot of teaching the game.
With some luck, maybe I can get a second chance.

I always felt an affinity for the Pistol and it increased with age with me.
I own Pistol books, DVD's figures, bobbleheads and of course cards.
When your kids move on and you hit middle age, you look for things to fill your time.
Ironically for me and the love of the game that I have, I've gone back to the past instead of the present.
That's what the Pistol has done for me.....