Pete Maravich

Pete Maravich was an American Hall of Fame basketball player whose three-year college career at Louisiana State University across 1967–1970 produced 3,667 NCAA career points — the all-time NCAA Division I men's basketball career-scoring record that has remained unbroken since 1970 (despite the substantial subsequent extension of the NCAA basketball season from 26 games to over 35 games per season). He was born Peter Press Maravich on June 22, 1947, in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, into a Serbian-American basketball family. His father Press Maravich was a former American basketball player who played in the National Basketball League and subsequently became a college basketball coach (Clemson University 1956–1962, North Carolina State University 1964–1966, and LSU 1966–1972).

His breakthrough came at Daniel High School in Central, South Carolina, where his father coached the Clemson University basketball team. His 1966 enrollment at LSU — where his father had been hired as the LSU head coach — and his subsequent freshman-team play in 1966–1967 (NCAA freshman-year ineligibility was in effect at the time) produced his 1967–1970 three-year LSU varsity career.

His 1967–1970 LSU varsity career produced his three consecutive NCAA Division I men's basketball annual scoring titles — averaging 43.8 points per game in 1968 (his sophomore year, when he scored 1,138 NCAA-Division-I-record points), 44.2 points per game in 1969 (his junior year, when he scored 1,148 NCAA-Division-I-record points), and 44.5 points per game in 1970 (his senior year, when he scored 1,381 NCAA-Division-I-record points). His 44.2 NCAA-Division-I men's basketball career scoring average across 83 LSU games has remained the all-time NCAA Division I men's basketball career-scoring-average record since 1970.

His 10-year NBA career across the Atlanta Hawks (1970–1974), the New Orleans / Utah Jazz (1974–1980), and the Boston Celtics (1980) produced his five-time NBA All-Star selection (1973, 1974, 1977, 1978, 1979) and his 1976–1977 NBA scoring title (averaging 31.1 points per game). The 1980 retirement at age 32 was produced by his right-knee chronic injury. The April 5, 1987 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame induction at age 39 made him the youngest Hall of Fame inductee at the time. He died on January 5, 1988, at age 40, in Pasadena, California, of a previously-undiagnosed congenital heart condition (a missing left coronary artery) during a recreational basketball pickup game.

His name Pete is the English short form of Peter (from the Greek Petros meaning "rock"). Pete has been a popular American boys' name across the early-to-mid-20th century.