The day started for Wilt Chamberlain as it often did, the great Philadelphia Warriors center leaving his New York apartment to board the train to Philadelphia.
Though he grew up there, Philadelphia just wasn’t big enough, fast enough or urbane enough for Wilt. New York, New York. Wilt the Stilt. They went together.
Wilt was leaving a little earlier on this day 40 years ago. That night’s game was in tiny Hershey, Pa., a common practice in the then-nine-team NBA to expand its borders. The fans didn’t come to them, so they went to the fans.
The Warriors’ bus arrived in Hershey a little after 3 that afternoon, and to occupy time Wilt joined a couple of team officials playing a shooting-gallery game in an arcade. Wilt was known for challenging anyone at just about anything and usually winning. So Warriors owner Ike Richman checked with the manager and found out the highest score ever recorded on the machine was 1,800.
They played a few rounds, until the challenge got higher with Richman figuring he had Wilt and betting him he couldn’t top 1,800.
Wilt scored 2,100.
“I guess that should have tipped me off about what to expect in the game that night,” Chamberlain said later.
That night 40 years ago, March 2, 1962, was perhaps the most remarkable in the history of American sports. It was the game in which Chamberlain established what might be the most unbreakable record in sport and probably the greatest single effort ever, scoring 100 points against the New York Knicks in an NBA game.
He made 36-of-63 field-goal attempts. Usually a horrible free-throw shooter, he sank 28-of-32.
“It was one of those times when everything came together,” Chamberlain recalled with uncharacteristic modesty.
He said that five years ago, the last time I talked with him, at the All-Star Game in Cleveland where the NBA was honoring its 50 greatest players. Chamberlain died two years later of a heart attack, and his voice is missed.
I’ve long felt the two most compelling sports figures of the 20th Century had their voices silenced too soon, Chamberlain dying at age 63 and Muhammad Ali being unable to communicate effectively because of Parkinson’s syndrome. They alienated many and angered more with their bombast and remarkable egos. But no one in the last 100 years did more and said more at the same time.
In some circles, Michael Jordan has eclipsed Chamberlain as the greatest player in NBA history, and even in Chamberlain’s prime many regarded Bill Russell as his superior because Russell’s Celtics usually defeated Chamberlain’s teams.
But no one–not Jordan, not the Celtics, no one in any sport, really–was as individually dominant a figure. The season he scored 100 points, 1961-62, Chamberlain averaged more than 50 points and more than 48 minutes a game. He played more than a quarter of his games against Hall of Fame centers Russell and Walt Bellamy, another 20 against multiple All-Stars Johnny Kerr and Wayne Embry.
Chamberlain had three games that season and three games the next scoring more points than Jordan had in the highest-scoring game of his career (69).
He was averaging about 55 late in the 1961-62 season, but eased off, he told friends, because he didn’t want to be held to that standard.
“He almost was embarrassed to a point,” said Al Attles, a Chamberlain teammate in the 100-point game and now an executive with the Golden State Warriors. “He once told me if he knew stats were going to become such a big deal, he might have done more. But he’d sometimes hold back, not be as aggressive as he could because he didn’t want to embarrass anyone. He’d hardly ever dunk. It was all so easy for him.”
Chamberlain was an unusually sensitive soul, self-conscious about his height and his might, and something of a Renaissance man. He loved fine art, spoke several languages, dabbled in politics and traveled the world. He was an avid reader with a photographic memory and would quiz teammates on arcane facts about places as they flew over them.
He was a track and field star who set national records and always wished he could have competed in the Olympics. He was scheduled once to box Ali and was offered contracts to play pro football. He had opinions on virtually everything, but became branded for a throwaway line in a book about how many women he’d been with.
“Nobody loves Goliath,” he liked to say. Wilt certainly loved women, and he loved life, but his love of life was often unrequited. “Wisdom is a strange commodity,” he said. “The more you have, the more you realize how dumb you are.”
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the 100-point game was that it didn’t exactly surprise people.
“He was averaging more than 50,” Attles recalled. “He got 78 one game. It was business as usual.”
In his three previous games Chamberlain scored 67, 65 and 61 points.
“It wasn’t until late in the third quarter or in the fourth quarter that there was a conscious effort to get him the ball,” Attles said. “[PA announcer] Dave Zinkoff is calling off every basket, `That’s 84 . . . that’s 86.'”
The Knicks, not surprisingly, weren’t enamored of the idea of surrendering 100 points, so they started fouling other Warriors and holding the ball 24 seconds before shooting. So when Chamberlain got past 90, his teammates began fouling the Knicks in retaliation.
It was late in the season and the game wasn’t for the playoffs. The newspapers didn’t even send writers, and there was no film of the game, which the Warriors won 169-147 before about 4,000 fans who stormed the court after Wilt reached 100.
NBA life was so informal then that Chamberlain rode back to New York in a car with several Knicks players.
“I remember sitting in the locker room with him after the game,” Attles recalled. “He was looking at the stat sheet and had this downtrodden look. I said, `Big fella, what’s wrong?’ He shook his head and said, `I never thought I’d take 63 shots in a game.’ I said, `But you made 36. We’ll take that any day.’ He kind of frowned. He used to talk about being most proud of getting 55 rebounds in a game. He said that was important.”
Oh, and that was against Russell.
“I don’t know what you’d point to,” Attles said. “I saw Secretariat run and destroy the field. Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Joe DiMaggio . . . you’d be hard-pressed to come up with any single individual performance to match Wilt’s.”
Chamberlain used to sponsor women’s track and volleyball teams and on the side of their bus was emblazoned one of his favorite slogans: “Where there’s a Wilt there’s a way.”
He was a giant, but no monster. Just his feats were, especially that one 40 years ago.
Chamberlain’s 100
MN FG-A FT-A REB A PF PTS
Chamberlain 48 36-63 28-32 25 2 2 100
1st quarter 12 7-14 9-9 10 0 0 23
2nd quarter 12 7-12 4-5 4 1 1 18
3rd quarter 12 10-16 8-8 6 1 0 28
4th quarter 12 12-21 7-10 5 0 1 31
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Glory days
Is Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game the greatest single performance in sports history?
You be the judge
Oct. 18, 1924: Red Grange scores the first four times he touches the football as Illinois beats Michigan 39-14.
Nov. 28, 1929: Ernie Nevers of the Chicago Cardinals runs for six TDs and kicks four extra points in a 40-6 win over the Bears.
May 25, 1935: Jesse Owens breaks three world records and equals a fourth within 45 minutes at the Big Ten championships.
Oct. 8, 1956: Don Larsen pitches the only perfect game in World Series history in the Yankees’ 2-0 victory over the Dodgers.
Dec. 12, 1965: Rookie Gale Sayers scores six touchdowns to lead the Bears to a 61-20 victory over the San Francisco 49ers.
Oct. 18, 1968: Bob Beamon leaps 29 feet 2 1/2 inches to win the gold medal, shattering the world record by 21 3/4 inches.
March 26, 1973: Bill Walton hits 21 of 22 shots to lead UCLA to an 87-66 victory over Memphis State for the NCAA title.
June 9, 1973: Secretariat completes the Triple Crown by winning the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, covering the 1 1/2 miles in a record 2:24.
Oct. 18, 1977: Reggie Jackson hits three home runs on three consecutive swings against the Dodgers, giving the Yankees the World Series title.
May 6, 1998: In just his fifth major-league start, Kerry Wood ties a record with 20 strikeouts. He walks no one and gives up just one infield hit in a 2-0 victory over the Astros.
What’s your opinion?
Cast a vote for what you think is the greatest single-day sports achievement–and if you figure we’ve missed the boat on what the greatest were, e-mail us with your thoughts:
Chicagosports.com/go/greatestday
