He Was Doing What He Loved, Playing a Game

Of Pete Maravich it could have been said that he would probably die on a basketball court, he loved the game so much.

And so it was in Pasadena Tuesday.

His last words: “I feel great.”

A moment later he collapsed, dead of a heart attack at 40.

Ralph Drollinger, the former UCLA center who was guarding Maravich in the pickup game, said: “He died quickly, painlessly and doing what he loved best.”

Maravich had come to Los Angeles Monday from his home in Covington, La., to discuss plans for a feature motion picture of his early life. A born-again Christian, he also had agreed to tape an interview with James Dobson for Dobson’s daily, internationally syndicated “Focus On the Family” radio program from Anaheim.

Three mornings a week, Dobson also plays pickup basketball with a few friends in the Parker Gymnasium facility that is part of the First Church of the Nazarene complex in Pasadena.

“So I invited him to join us,” Dobson said.

“We started close to 7, and at about 7:45 or close to 8, I guess, we stopped and were making new teams. Pete and I were just chatting, and I asked him how he felt. He had been ill with a neurological problem in his shoulder that had been just devastating for about six months.

“He said, ‘I feel much better. In fact, I feel great.’ Those were his last words: ‘I feel great.’ And he turned and took one step and fell and was gone--I mean, one second later.

“I thought he was fooling because he was famous for his sense of humor. I went over to him and said, ‘Pete?’ He was on his back. He was cold, and we couldn’t get a heartbeat on him.”

Dobson and Drollinger alternated in administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation until paramedics arrived.

“We did CPR for 8 or 10 minutes, and there was never any response,” Dobson said.

Drollinger added: “He just went cold. There was no pulse, no signs of life.”

The game--four on four, half-court--wasn’t especially strenuous by Maravich’s standards, although he had told Dobson that the shoulder problem kept him from playing basketball in the last year, except for a National Basketball Assn. old-timers’ game last spring.

Drollinger, who lives in Lake Arrowhead, said he plays only occasionally with the group but made it a point to show up Tuesday because he had heard Maravich would be there. They wound up on opposite teams.

“We played a very casual game,” Drollinger said. “Nobody was going all-out. We were having more of a fellowship than a game--just a bunch of guys over the hill.”

Dobson said: “Pete was going about half-speed. He wasn’t about to come out there and hotdog it for a bunch of hackers.”

In fact, Drollinger said: “Dobson and I were beating them pretty bad. We asked Pete if he wanted to switch teams and he said, ‘No, we’re going to get you guys.’

“I have to say this: He didn’t look good the whole morning. He just looked tired, like he was under stress.”

Darrel Campbell, the co-author of Maravich’s recent book, “Heir to a Dream,” went to St. Luke’s Hospital in Pasadena, where Maravich was taken.

“He was in town to go over a script for a movie we were doing on his early life,” Campbell said. “He was in great spirits. He said he was feeling better than he had since his father (former coach Press Maravich) died in April of bone cancer.”

Most recently, Maravich produced basketball videos through his L.A. Production Group company.

Campbell said that as far as he knew, Maravich had no history of heart trouble.

Drollinger said that he and Maravich had a casual acquaintance but similar goals.

Drollinger, who heads New Focus, Inc., which produces the syndicated “Second Look” TV program, had interviewed Maravich a few times since the latter’s conversion after his retirement from the NBA in 1980.

“At the time he had a real longing in his heart and felt his life was empty,” Drollinger said. “He decided he wanted to prepare for eternity like some players prepare for retirement, and he was prepared. What a great guy.”