Bob Pettit, an LSU and Baton Rouge living basketball legend, is honored with a memorial of himself beside the PMAC on Saturday.
In celebration, the former Tiger player from 1951-54, Pettit, 83, was honored with a 30-foot statue of himself in a shooting motion. Former players, spirited friends and family members — including his 10 grandchildren — assembled to pay their respects to one of LSU’s finest.
“I don’t there’s anything that compares to this,” Pettit said. “This is far beyond anything that I could’ve ever dreamed of happening.”
Like Shaquille O’Neal, Pettit’s neighboring statue, Pettit’s name is printed on the side of the statue’s pedestal, directly below the identical jagged-wooden base.
Pettit, a Baton Rouge High School alumnus, spent three seasons in purple and gold while he studied at the LSU’s “College of Commerce,” he said to the media on Saturday after the unveiling.
Pettit was only one of two Tigers to tally 60 points in a game for LSU — the other was Pete Maravich. Pettit scored 1,916 points for LSU, collected 1,039 rebounds and became the second-overall pick in the Milwaukee Hawks in 1954.
After his drafting, Pettit received an $11,000 contract, the then-all-time highest salary for a rookie.

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Bob Pettit speaks beside a statue of himself on Feb. 27.