Pete Maravich - Later Life and Death

Later Life and Death

After the injury forced him to leave basketball in the fall of 1980, Maravich became a recluse for two years. Through it all, Maravich said he was searching "for life." He tried the practices of yoga and Hinduism, read Trappist monk Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain and took an interest in the field of ufology, the study of unidentified flying objects. He also explored vegetarianism and macrobiotics. Eventually, he embraced evangelical Christianity. A few years before his death, Maravich said, "I want to be remembered as a Christian, a person that serves Him to the utmost, not as a basketball player."

On January 5, 1988, Pete Maravich collapsed and died at age 40 of heart failure while playing in a pickup basketball game in the gym at a church in Pasadena, California, with a group that included James Dobson of Focus on the Family fame. 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." An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a rare congenital defect; he had been born with a missing left coronary artery, a vessel which supplies blood to the muscle fibers of the heart. His right coronary artery was grossly enlarged and had been compensating for the defect.

Maravich is buried at Resthaven Gardens of Memory and Mausoleum in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.