Associated Press
Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia Warriors holds a sign to celebrate his 100-point effort on March 2, 1962.
PHILADELPHIA -- Wilt Chamberlain
didn’t just tower over his peers, he left records that endured for
decades. And for 50 years, one mighty number has stood as the Mount
Everest of sport’s magic numbers.
100 points.
At 25, Chamberlain had already crafted a career built on steady,
sustained and spectacular excellence. Playing at 7-foot-1 and 260 pounds
for the Philadelphia Warriors, he held the single-game record of 78
points (in three overtimes) and the regulation mark of 73 in January
1962.
One hundred points was no flash of momentary greatness. It was a
fireball of scoring unlikely ever to be topped — and put Chamberlain
everywhere from the record book to “The Ed Sullivan Show” to an
unmatched spot in the short list of sport’s all-time unbelievable
performances.
But on March 2, 1962 at the Hershey Sports Arena, hardly anyone noticed.
There were no TV cameras. Sports writers were scarce — and so were
the fans. Only 4,124 (at $2.50 a ticket) attended the game, in fact,
between the Warriors and the New York Knicks as the 1961-62 season
dwindled down. Untold numbers of people claimed they were there to
witness history, however.
And why not? The milestone, after all, changed the game forever.
“The 100-point game was a hyperbolic announcement of the rise of the
black athlete in basketball,” said author Gary Pomerantz, who wrote the
complete narrative of that game in the 2005 book, “WILT, 1962: The Night
of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era.
No NBA star has really come close to scoring 100 points. Los Angeles
Lakers star Kobe Bryant had the luxury of the 3-point shot (he hit
seven) when he scored 81 on Jan. 22, 2006. Michael Jordan never topped
69. Allen Iverson hit 60. David Robinson scored 10 fewer field goals
than Chamberlain made in the 100-point game when he scored 71 in 1994.
“I’d hate to try and break it myself,” Chamberlain said, according to Pomerantz’s book.
Chamberlain played all 48 minutes in Philadelphia’s 169-147 win over
the Knicks. He shot 36 of 63 from the floor and an un-Wilt-like 28 of 32
from the free-throw line.
“I personally don’t think it will ever happen again,” said Chamberlain’s Warriors teammate, Al Attles.
Chamberlain averaged 50.4 points a game that season.
“I played one game where he got 78 points, and we lost,” Attles said.
At least not through the first three quarters, when Chamberlain scored 69.
“Wilt tried to come out of the game before he got the 100 points. But
[coach] Frank McGuire would not take him out,” Attles said. “Wilt
wasn’t the kind of guy to say, ‘OK, I’m tired, take me out.’ He’d listen
to the coach. And Frank McGuire acted like he couldn’t hear him. He
just turned. But unbeknownst to us, he had made a pact with Wilt when
Wilt first got there that Wilt was going to average 50 points a game and
one day score 100. And he averaged 50. And, of course, a 100-point game
was absolutely incredible.”
The Wilton Norman Chamberlain Postal Stamp Committee is holding a
luncheon to continue its push to put Chamberlain on a stamp. “Wilt 100,”
an NBA TV original film narrated by Chamberlain’s chief rival and good
friend, Hall of Famer Bill Russell, premieres at 7 p.m. today.
The Sixers recently purchased the court that was stored in Hershey.
The Sixers donated part of the court to the Naismith Memorial Basketball
Hall of Fame and all fans at tonight’s game vs. the Warriors will
receive a mounted 2-by-2-inch piece.
Sixers CEO Adam Aron said part of the floor will be given to Chamberlain’s three sisters at halftime.
“It’s going to be all Wilt, all night long,” Aron said.
Chamberlain still looms large in the NBA — no matter there’s no video
of his feat or he can’t be around to celebrate the mark at 50. “You
can’t see him scoring 100 points,” Pomerantz said, “but you feel his
presence.”
Read more at Jacksonville.com:
http://jacksonville.com/sports/basketball/nba/2012-03-02/story/50-years-ago-today-few-thousand-saw-wilt-hit-100#ixzz1o0kxmn9L
