This is the sixth in a series of examinations of basketball-related legends and whether they are true or false.

This installment is a re-format edition, so these legends have already been posted on this site, just not in this format.

Let’s begin!

BASKETBALL LEGEND: When he was 25, Pete Maravich correctly identified when he would retire and when he would die.

STATUS: True

“Pistol” Pete Maravich was a famous basketball player in the National Basketball Association and perhaps an even more famous college player (he played for Louisiana State University – LSU), where he is still the all-time leading scorer in NCAA Division I history (Maravich scored 3,667 points, even though he did not even play Varsity ball as a freshman).

He was drafted third overall in the 1970 NBA Draft, and was named to the NBA All-Rookie Team in 1971.

He had an impressive NBA career, making the All-Star Game five times (1973, 1974, 1977-1979) plus making the All-NBA First Team twice (1976, 1977) and the Second Team twice (1973, 1978). He also lead the NBA in scoring in the 1976-77 season (31.1 points per game).

He suffered a leg injury in the 1977-78 season, and that ended up de-railing his career.

By the 1980 season, he was out of basketball for good after ten seasons in the game.

In 1988, at the age of 40, Maravich was playing a pick-up game at the First Church of the Nazarene in Pasadena when he suddenly collapsed died.

As it turned out, Maravich had an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. His left coronary artery was completely missing, forcing his right coronary artery to double in size attempting to make up for the missing artery.

Maravich’s death was shocking and tragic. However, the most shocking thing about it was an alleged quote that Maravich made years earlier, during his fourth NBA season, at the age of 25.

He allegedly said to a reporter, “I don’t want to play 10 years [referring to the NBA] and then die of a heart attack when I’m 40.”

Pretty shocking, right?

Especially for a guy with no known history of heart problems in the family (his father died a year before Maravich of prostate cancer).

Well, looking into it, yes, Andy Nuzzo, a reporter for the Beaver County (Pennsylvania) Times published that interview with Maravich, including that quote, back in 1974.

So, shockingly enough, it’s actually true!

Thanks to Andy Nuzzo for getting the quote!

BASKETBALL LEGEND: Bill Laimbeer played a Sleestak on the children’s television show Land of the Lost.

STATUS: True

First, let’s have a quick introduction of our players…

Bill Laimbeer was the center for the Detroit Pistons when they won back-to-back National Basketball Championships in the late 1980s.

Laimbeer’s abilities as a basketball player (he was a four-time All-Star, he was one of the best outside shooting centers of his era and he is still the Pistons’ all-time leader in rebounds) are perhaps overlooked because of his reputation as a player who was not afraid to get physical with his opponents, while also at the same time willing to goad opponents into committing stupid fouls on him and perhaps frustrating opposing players enough that they would do things they wouldn’t normally do (Laimbeer is one of the few players who can say that he was punched in the face by two Hall of Famers, Robert Parrish and Michael Jordan).

Laimbeer was a big part of why the Pistons were called the “Bad Boys” back then, but their tough style of play was also a WINNING style of play, as they won two championships, and that team of Pistons has a winning record in the playoffs against Jordan’s Bulls, Larry Bird’s Celtics AND Magic Johnson’s Lakers.

Land of the Lost was a children’s television program that aired for three seasons on Saturday mornings from 1974-1976 (and has been replayed ever since, to the point where it has become a major cult classic)….

The show follows a man and his two children as they become trapped in an alternate universe filled with dinosaurs and all sorts of other far-out creatures.

As the family tries to find its way home, they (and the audience) explore their new home.

The show is soon to be re-made as a major motion picture in 2009, starring Will Ferrell.

So what could these shows possibly have in common?

Well, a major group of bad guys on the Land of the Lost are the scary, lizard-men known as the Sleestaks.

The Sleestaks are meant to be towering evil giants, so that caused a bit of a problem for the show – where would they find people tall enough to fit into the suits and cheap enough to, well, you know – work cheap.

Enter Bill Laimbeer!

Laimbeer played a Sleestak during the first season of the show, before he went to college (Laimbeer attended the University of Notre Dame).

On the Wikipedia page for The Land of the Lost, they suggest that the show decided to crash the local high school (the show was filmed in Los Angeles) to find tall players from the basketball team to play the Sleestaks. I don’t believe that’s accurate.

When on the Colin Cowherd show recently, Bill Laimbeer discussed how he got the gig (that’s an audio link, by the way), and Laimbeer’s story fits the fact of the matter a lot better than the Wikipedia version of the story.

According to Laimbeer, who DID attend high school in Palos Verdes, which is pretty close by, the job was given to him while he was being recruited by the two big Southern California schools (University of Southern California and University of California, Los Angeles) and that it was arranged by someone connected to the studio who also was connected to one of the two schools. That makes sense, because the other two men that played Sleestaks on the show were both future NBA players, David Greenwood and John Lambert (and all three men were at least six foot ten), and Greenwood did not attend the same high school as Laimbeer and Lambert was actually close to graduation from USC at the time he appeared on the show. Greenwood ended up attending UCLA while Laimbeer went to Notre Dame, as mentioned above.

So almost certainly, this was arranged as a sort of a perk in an attempt to lure the graduating seniors Greenwood and Laimbeer to play in Southern California (while Lambert was most likely just being rewarded for being a great player for USC). And that’s how Laimbeer remembers it, so I think that’s the true story. That doesn’t mean that LATER seasons didn’t have Sleestaks played by players from the local basketball team, though, so Wikipedia could be correct in that sense!

Still, overall, it’s an amazing story – Bill Laimbeer as a Sleestak! Hilarious!

Thanks so much to commenter Basara549 for suggesting this great legend!

BASKETBALL LEGEND: Future NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue was Georgetown’s career leader in total rebounds and rebounds per game when he graduated.

STATUS: False

Paul Tagliabue was the Commissioner of the National Football League for seventeen years from 1989 until his retirement in 2006 (before becoming Commissioner, Tagliabue was the General Counsel for the NFL).

However, what you very rarely hear about Paul Tagliabue (so much so that it is not even mentioned at all on his Wikipedia page, as of May 19th, 2009) is that he was a great BASKETBALL player when he was attending Georgetown University in the late 1950s/early 1960s.

In fact, while looking into the Mets/Red Sox legend from earlier today, I read the following in a book about Mets fans by Rich Wolfe, For Mets Fans Only:

Paul Tagliabue once held the career rebounding record at Georgetown. The mark was broken by Patrick Ewing in 1985.

I found that fascinating – that the future commissioner of the NFL was the career rebounding leader at Georgetown!

However, it’s not true.

Tagliabue WAS a great player for Georgetown, and he was an excellent rebounder.

Here he is in the team photos for his three years at Georgetown (Tagliabue is #32 – on the second photo, he is is the third guy from the bottom of the left column)…

1959-60

1960-61

1961-62

However, he never held the career rebounding record, either in total rebounds or rebounds per game.

That honor went to a player who was just ahead of Tagliabue at Georgetown, Joe Missett.

Here’s Missett on the Georgetown 1955-56 squad (Missett is #22 – the second guy in the front row).

Tagliabue graduated with 584 total rebounds and a 9.2 rebounds per game average.

Both of those were excellent, but both were below Missett’s 688 and 10.8, respectively.

By the way, both men were not even beaten first by Ewing, since well before Ewing, the NCAA began to allow freshmen to play, allowing players FOUR years to amass rebounds rather than three for Tagliabue and Missett.

However, even BEFORE then, Mike Laughna passed Tagliabue and Missett in total rebounds (with 833) while tying Missett for rebounds per game. And soon after that, Merlin Wilson (who DID play all four years) became the all-time leader in rebounds per game with 11.4 rebounds per game.

THAT record, remarkably enough, still DOES remain today, even with some of the amazing rebounders who have played for Georgetown since Wilson graduated in 1976, including Jerome Williams, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo and Patrick Ewing, who does, indeed, still hold the record for most total rebounds at Georgetown with a stunning 1316.

Again, do note that modern players play more games than the players of the past, and that’s not counting the whole “playing a whole extra season” thing.

Whatever the case, no, Paul Tagliabue never was the career leader in rebounds at Georgetown.

About a BAZILLION thanks to one of the most awesome sports research sites out there, the Georgetown Basketball History Project, for all the information, stats and photos! SUCH an awesome site!

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com