Pete Maravich, in a 1974 interview with the Beaver County Times, said: “I don’t want to play 10 years in the NBA and die of a heart attack at age 40.” He played pro ball for 10 years, from 1970 to 1980, and died of a heart attack Tuesday in Pasadena, at 40.
“On January 5, 1988, Maravich collapsed and died of heart failure at age 40[29] while playing in a pickup basketball game in the gym at First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena, California, with a group that included evangelical author James Dobson. Maravich had flown out from his home in Louisiana to tape a segment for Dobson’s radio show that aired later that day.
Dobson has said that Maravich’s last words, less than a minute before he died, were “I feel great. I just feel great.”
KEVIN KIM 