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The Record Book
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00:05Hello, I'm Chris Fowler for SportsCentury.
00:08Wilt Chamberlain's size, strength, and athleticism were unimaginable.
00:13He made large men appear small, and when he played, it seemed all too easy, almost unfair.
00:20His numbers were too big for comfort. He didn't just break records, he destroyed them.
00:25Basketball was Wilt Chamberlain's sandbox.
00:34I once performed in an arena, it's in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
00:37And all I could think about in the locker room was this was the locker room that Wilt was in
00:41when he scored 100 points.
00:42How can somebody score 100 points in a game?
00:46Here's the big fourth quarter, and everybody's thinking how many Wilt got to get.
00:49He's got 69 going in. Here's the pass score, and he's got another one.
00:53In the second half, the team decided that maybe they can get 100, so they were feeding him constantly.
00:58Chamberlain has 75 with 10 minutes to go.
01:01I don't think any of us realized that Wilt was on that much of a tear.
01:05Then Dave Zinkoff announced Dipper 82 points, and literally, Wilt's eyes lit up.
01:13Dipper Bond has just started to retire. He has 94, 2 minutes and 5 seconds to play.
01:20New York was freezing the ball. And had you just walked into the game and not realized what was going
01:26on, you'd say,
01:27Here, here's a team, they're losing by 15 points, and they're freezing the ball.
01:30They wanted to use time so Wilt couldn't score.
01:33In fact, it got so ridiculous at one stretch where they were deliberately fouling us when we got the ball
01:39in bounds to keep the clock from running.
01:41I was embarrassed, you know, basically playing in a game like that.
01:46One minute and one second to play. Chamberlain at 88. He can make it easily.
01:52We were going for 100. His record was our record.
02:03There must have been 46 or 47 seconds remaining in the game.
02:09People just ran out of the stands. Just to touch Wilt. Just to be there.
02:14Before Forsmerized fans on March 2nd, 1962, Wilt played in the clouds.
02:20Draining 36 field goals and collecting 28 points from the line, the 7-1 center lifted his game beyond reach
02:28of any NBA player in history.
02:30He was so dominant and so impossible to stop. Wilt was bound to score 100 points, whether it was going
02:37to be that season or some other season in the future.
02:44We used to watch Wilt Chamberlain every single Sunday.
02:50The Big Depper.
02:51I think probably Wilt dominated the game more than anyone else.
02:54And the reason I say that is because Wilt could do it on both ends of the floor.
02:57Offensively, no one could guard him. And defensively, Wilt was going after every shot.
03:02Russell blocked by Chamberlain. A great block by Chamberlain.
03:05I learned a lesson early against Wilt. When I was a rookie, I blocked one of his shots and he
03:09blocked every shot that I took the next five times we played them.
03:13Lenny Wilkins cast off a shot that appeared to be three feet above the basket.
03:19And Wilt jumped up and caught this ball with one hand. The referee called goaltending.
03:24And I hollered at him, how could you call that goaltending? And he says, guy, what I just saw is
03:31not humanly possible.
03:33You really can't tell how big he is until you actually see him.
03:36He shook my hand and my hand disappeared. And I'm just going, I don't believe this.
03:42People don't understand how big he is. He like blocks out the sun. The sense of size in Wilt Chamberlain
03:51is the essence of the man. It's just there. You just feel like you're in the presence of some giant.
03:58Wilt was simply, you know, a man child in a game where it was just simple. He got 55 rebounds
04:06in a game.
04:07Wilt averaged 50 points a game for a full season. 50 points a game.
04:14Wilt was just a game. And averaged over 48 minutes a game. He never fouled out of a professional basketball
04:24game in his entire career.
04:26In 1959, Chamberlain hit the NBA with full force. He was the first player named Rookie of the Year and
04:33MVP in the same season.
04:35The reaction to his size and talent was so unsettling that the rules of the game suddenly seemed inadequate.
04:42I think in the long run, I'll be able to handle myself man to man with almost anyone in the
04:46league.
04:47He was the only guy that could change the landscape in basketball, change the rules. Offensive goaltending, defensive goaltending.
04:58He had to widen the lane. The free throw shooter had to release the ball behind the line.
05:06Wilt could take off from the free throw line and dunk the foul shot.
05:10When Wilt came into the league in the late 50s, I think absolutely there was fear.
05:16He's a black man. And he's dominating what had been basically a white sport.
05:21Wilt just forged right through those things.
05:24Wilt Chamberlain always judged everyone as an individual.
05:28Wilt was extremely impressed with his demeanor. He never got flustered. He never got mad.
05:33Wilt was a nice guy. Sometimes to his detriment on the court, he was too nice a man.
05:40He would not dunk and sometimes miss the shot because he would go in and there'd be a guy with
05:48his hand there and he knew he'd break the guy's hand.
05:50Or he'd break the guy's arm or he dislocated shoulder if he bumped into him too hard.
05:56So he'd just pull up.
06:11And someone would put their hand within the cylinder trying to block his shot and Wilt would let up.
06:17Because he knew he could break the man's arm.
06:20Chamberlain won seven straight scoring titles, 11 rebounding crowns, and two championship rings.
06:26Yet, for most of his 14 seasons, he played in a shadow of perfection cast by the press.
06:32He had a lot of terrible things said about him because he didn't win more.
06:38Wilt Chamberlain will forever be defined were his failures, not his victories.
06:41It's his own fault. He had opportunities to change it and he could never do it.
06:45Chamberlain was concerned about Chamberlain.
06:50He was in love with his stats.
06:52I think showing his peers that he could score 50 a game, that he could get 24 rebounds, that he
07:01could get eight assists.
07:02I think that was enough for Wilt to say, look, they're the numbers.
07:08He was so great that no matter what he did, people never accepted it as being enough.
07:15If you look at his records, and the records that he sent, I always thought it was like watching him
07:22in slow motion.
07:23I thought he could have even done more.
07:25If you win, everybody says, well, look at him, he's that big.
07:30If you lose, it's, how could he lose a guy that size?
07:34I think it's confused him. He would have been better in an individual sport.
07:38He'd have been much better.
07:42It's not easy growing up seven feet tall, gifted, black in American society.
07:49Wilt Chamberlain was just Wilt the Stilt.
07:52You know, I mean, they never saw the total human being.
07:55Born in Philadelphia on August 21st, 1936, Wilton Norman Chamberlain suffered the emotional inequities generated by his rapid growth.
08:06He sucked his thumb, no matter what he was doing.
08:10Now, don't forget, we came out of elementary school, he was six foot three.
08:15He was still sucking that thumb.
08:18He not only was tall and thought of as unusual, he stuttered.
08:23He was always slouching over because he was not very proud.
08:30It was a terrible, terrible thing to be tall because people would pick at you.
08:35The family called him Dip because he had to dip through the door.
08:40People had never seen anyone as tall as Wilt.
08:43Some looked at him in amazement.
08:46Some were befuddled.
08:48Being 6'10", 6'11", at 13 years old, 14 years old, it really created a real barrier for him.
08:58One of nine children, Wilt found solace and guidance within the nurturing atmosphere of his home.
09:05His mother he really respected.
09:08She was the rock around him.
09:10His father was a laborer and worked hard and that rubbed off on Wilt.
09:14It was a great family atmosphere and Wilt was not treated any different than anybody else in the family.
09:22He was tall, but you could still take out the trash.
09:24He still had to do his chores.
09:26Scraping door frames at Overbrook High School, Chamberlain's career 37-point average overheated the imaginations of college recruiters across the
09:35country as he led the Panthers to consecutive city championships.
09:38No one had seen anybody with this agility.
09:42No one had seen anybody go up in the air and catch the ball at its apex and just bring
09:47it down.
09:47It was frightening.
09:49It was a time when we had 120 scholarships being offered to him.
09:54He was being called day and night.
09:56One school said, we're going to put you in the movies and make you a celebrity.
09:59Another school said, we'll give your brothers and sisters scholarships to colleges.
10:04Eddie Gottlieb was the owner of the Philadelphia Warriors.
10:07He got a rule put in that you could draft a player out of high school for delivery four years
10:15later.
10:16He went to Kansas to play already belonging to Philadelphia upon graduation.
10:22Wilt Chamberlain's reputation coming out of high school was that he was so big and so overwhelming that nobody could
10:29ever deal with him on a basketball court.
10:31If he had been perceived as unstoppable on the hardwood, Chamberlain would also challenge the values of middle American society.
10:40In the fall of 1955, an unforgettable sighting occurred at KU's Lawrence campus.
10:45A big black man coming to Kansas in the early 50s or the mid 50s.
10:51It was a culture shock for a lot of people, no question about it.
10:54I think for him, it was a little bit of a wake up call to realize that most of America
10:58was not Philadelphia, it's not West Philadelphia and that it was overwhelmingly white and he was going to be treated
11:03as an oddity.
11:04The first time he went to a public restaurant, he was denied.
11:09They told him they didn't serve blacks.
11:11The color line was broken because Wilt went in, sat down, ordered a meal and was served.
11:16And from that point on, there was no problem.
11:19After being ordained a campus cult figure, Chamberlain hosted a late night radio show called Flippin' with the Dipper.
11:27When he wasn't spinning 45s on the air, Wilt found refuge in the brotherhood of sports and it wasn't always
11:33basketball.
11:34He went to Bill Easton, the track coach, one time and said, Coach, I'd like to enter in the high
11:39jump.
11:40And Bill said, well, Wilt, he said, you haven't even practiced.
11:43He said, how could you possibly compete?
11:45And he said, well, just give me a chance.
11:47Wilt won the big seven high jump championship with no practice at all.
11:52I saw Wilt Chamberlain run under two minutes and 880 yards.
11:56I saw him put the shot over 50 feet.
11:59In the 1950s, big guys were still called goons.
12:03There was a sense that they weren't athletes, that they were only in the game because they were tall.
12:08There was this natural disposition to see this guy simply as a freak of nature.
12:13And no matter what he did on the track and field, it didn't change that image.
12:19However he may have been perceived, Chamberlain's impact on college basketball proved deep and permanent.
12:25When he came to Kansas, the rumor got out and scared the daylights out of everybody in the country.
12:30They said he could stand at the free throw line and just leap and stuff, which under the old rules
12:35would have been legal.
12:36We would play a team like Oklahoma State, and they might pass the ball 40, 45 times before they'd attempt
12:43a shot,
12:44realizing that any time you ran with the team that Wilt was on that you're probably going to get blown
12:48out pretty good.
12:49In his first varsity season, Wilt averaged 30 points and 19 rebounds, leading Kansas into the 1957 NCAA final.
12:58Anchored by the big center, who KU's former coach Fogg Allen once whimsically remarked could win the national title with
13:05two cheerleaders and two five beta kappas,
13:08the Jayhawks were seven-point favorites over top-ranked North Carolina.
13:12Kansas had a forward named Maurice King, who was a very good shooter.
13:16Well, of course, North Carolina surrounded Wilt, surrounded him all the time, which left King open, and King could not
13:22make a basket.
13:23Simply couldn't get the ball down.
13:26Despite Chamberlain's 23 points and 14 rebounds, the Jayhawks trailed 54-53 in the closing seconds of the most famous
13:35triple overtime game in college history.
13:37They're going to pass into Ronnie Lineski, who's going to try to lob the ball high and get it into
13:42Wilt, who can score.
13:43But it was intercepted by North Carolina, and the ball game ended, and the Jayhawks come up one point short
13:49three overtimes.
13:52Chamberlain carried the loss as though it were his alone.
13:55He just thought that he'd let the University of Kansas down. None of us felt that he'd let us down.
14:01We were just glad to be riding on his coattails and took us as far as he possibly could.
14:06He said, what happens? Team beats individual.
14:10And Chamberlain was marked.
14:13From that moment on, people would hark back to that and say he can't win.
14:22In the weeks following the 1957 NCAA title game lost to North Carolina,
14:28Will Chamberlain seriously weighed whether he should remain at Kansas.
14:32He decided to stay, and despite an injury in December, averaged over 30 points and 17 rebounds as a junior
14:39for the 18-5 Jayhawks.
14:41But after the team failed to make the NCAA tournament, he confided to a friend that he might leave.
14:48He said, Sonny, if I stay in college, they're gonna put three and four people around me, and I'm not
14:55gonna be able to expand my game.
14:56Chamberlain decided to leave. But with the NBA closed to him until his Kansas class graduated, he signed a one
15:04-year contract with Abe Saperstein's Harlem Globetrotters for $60,000.
15:09Twice what any NBA basketball player was making at the time.
15:17He learned some things, how to relax and have some fun with the game, and I don't think he experienced
15:22before.
15:23Abe wanted, well, more than one year. He wanted to go play basketball. A clown he wasn't.
15:31Hmm.
15:32After joining the Philadelphia Warriors upon his NBA eligibility in 1959, Chamberlain immediately asserted his dominance, averaging 38 points and
15:4227 rebounds.
15:43As a rookie, he had climbed to the top of the league, where only one other center stood.
15:50He could.
15:50He could not be guarded. He could not be defended. He could not be thwarted.
15:54He was the greatest physical specimen that anybody has ever seen on a basketball court, and one guy had his
16:01number.
16:02One guy was David to his Goliath. One guy, Bill Russell.
16:10Probably the greatest matchup in the history of basketball.
16:14But it really took on biblical proportions in a way.
16:19It was like good against evil, offense against defense.
16:23What?
16:24Everybody thought Bill is the nice guy.
16:27And here comes this big giant from Philadelphia, and he's the bad guy.
16:33He was the monster.
16:36He was this, this, this, this behemoth.
16:39He was not Jack the Giant Killer.
16:42He was the giant that we all wanted to kill.
16:45This guy was five or six inches, bigger than Russell.
16:49He was 70 pounds, heavier than Russell.
16:52He was very skillful of what he did.
16:54The first time we played Wilt, Wilt destroyed Bill Russell.
17:00Russell put enough fear in Russell's heart that Russell was going to do anything to beat Wilt.
17:08The only difference between the two of them was the fire in the belly.
17:13If he had one third of Russell's intensity, God, he would have been even more awesome than he was.
17:20Anything more awesome was almost inconceivable.
17:25Never averaging below 33 points and 22 rebounds a season between 1960 and 1966,
17:32Chamberlain reached his offensive zenith by scoring 50 points a game in 1962.
17:37But in those seven years, Chamberlain fell to Russell in five playoffs.
17:42When the Celtics would come to town, a lot of people don't realize that Wilt would invite Russell to his
17:47house for dinner.
17:48And then they'd go to the arena and Russell would try to tear his head off.
17:53Russell was a master of psychology.
17:56He knew exactly what he was doing all the time, you know, and he used that.
18:00Russell would let Wilt score.
18:03Wilt's teammates would stand there and watch Wilt score.
18:07They'd never be involved.
18:08Then he'd shut Wilt down, and now this time the other guys are cold.
18:12I've seen Wilt get down on the floor and be his hands on the floor and his hands on the
18:15floor and his knees are so frustrated.
18:16I guess, to be very honest with you, Boston probably had a better team than we did.
18:21You know, there's always talk of Wilt versus Russell and Russell beat Wilt, etc.
18:25That's not true.
18:27Russell didn't beat Wilt.
18:28Boston beat Philly.
18:32You beat Philly by going 4 of 22 from the field in a Game 7.
18:37They lost by two points.
18:39The Warriors moved to San Francisco, but for the next two and a half seasons, Chamberlain stayed at top of
18:45the scoring and rebounding charts.
18:47Meanwhile, the Syracuse Nationals moved to Philadelphia and were renamed the 76ers.
18:52In January of 1965, Wilt would resume his on-again, off-again relationship with the city of brotherly love.
19:00When the trade was made to bring him back to Philadelphia from San Francisco, I mean, the media just went
19:06crazy.
19:08I mean, he was like, for a couple of weeks, it was the number one front page story in the
19:13city.
19:13So are you happy or sad about it?
19:17Mixed emotions.
19:18Actually, I'll be like Tony Bennett leaving my heart here in San Francisco because I fell in love with the
19:23city.
19:24In 1966, the 76ers head coach, Alex Hannum, convinced the 30-year-old Chamberlain that in order to win an
19:32NBA title, he would have to rebuild his game from the ground up.
19:35Never in the history of sport has a player of Wilt's magnitude been asked to change what he has done
19:46so well for so many years for the betterment of a team.
19:49Wilt just looked around and saw the talent on that team and realized that these players would perform better the
19:56more they were involved in the play rather than Wilt doing everything.
20:01He was assisting more, he was rebounding more, he was playing better defense, the whole bit.
20:05He beats Russell fair and square one time when it mattered.
20:09In 1967, when he had his finest year, the most balanced year, a man could have 24 points a game,
20:1424 rebounds a game, and 8 assists a game for a team that wins 60 games.
20:19The Celtics win five games.
20:21The Celtics run a break of defeat for the first time since 1956.
20:25Game we try, but they deny that we're in the second half.
20:28We go in the locker room and their champagne's out and everybody's so excited.
20:34Chamberlain didn't want any champagne.
20:36He said, we have one more step to go.
20:38And then the champagne was put down and we understood that we'll drink it, you know, in another 10 days.
20:46We felt that beating Boston was time out to win the championship.
20:50Of course, we had to beat San Francisco first to get the world's title.
20:55Which the 76ers did in six games.
20:58Although Wilt's revamped game brought Philadelphia's first NBA title, the future, which might have held a dynasty, would be flawed
21:06by the great center's bed noir, the foul shot.
21:18Ultimately, of course, we get to the fact that he couldn't sink free throws.
21:23He loved to say that he could sink shots from outside as well as Jerry West or Gale Goodrich or
21:30somebody who was playing, which was perfect nonsense.
21:32But that was important for him because, you see, that wasn't a functional size.
21:37But then you'd ask him, well, if that's true, well, why can't you shoot a free throw?
21:42And he didn't have an answer.
21:44The germ of Wilt Chamberlain's foul line affliction had been planted back in Kansas.
21:48He was one of the worst free throw shooters in NBA history.
21:52A 62% free throw shooter with the Jayhawks.
21:55Six of ten from the strike.
21:57He tried underhand, sideways, almost back to the top of the circle, and just never could do that.
22:03But yet in practice, he could sit there and make seven out of ten.
22:06I think if Wilt really concentrated on it and he had a little help from somebody who could shoot fouls
22:12and instruct him like a golf pro, he could have been a better shooter.
22:16One game, Earl Strom, the great referee, was working the game and Wilt got a foul called on him.
22:25He's on the way to the line and he turns and then the most, if you can imagine a seven
22:30foot three etcher speaking in a pitiable voice.
22:33He said, Earl, Earl, tell me, help me.
22:38Why can't I make a free throw?
22:42Against the Celtics in 1968 Eastern Division Finals, the 76ers blew a three games to one lead.
22:49In their four point loss in game seven, Chamberlain was less than dominant, shooting four for nine from the field
22:55and six of 15 from the foul line.
22:58It was his last game as a 76er.
23:01Wilt has always said that he had been promised a piece of ownership of the team.
23:08And if he was not going to get it, he wanted to be traded.
23:12He said, I want to be traded.
23:14I want to be traded to a West Coast team.
23:16And we got Darryl Imhoff and Archie Clark and Jerry Chambers for Wilt Chamberlain.
23:25Wilt went to the Lakers.
23:27And he's sitting there at the press conference.
23:29And one of the reporters asked Wilt, does he think Butch Von Gretikoff, who's the coach of the Lakers, will
23:37be able to control him?
23:39And Wilt looks at the reporter and said, no one controls Wilt.
23:46And then the first day of practice, we moved the ball around and he's moving a little bit and guys
23:52are cutting.
23:53I said, ooh, these guys are good.
23:56Second day, you couldn't get him out of one spot in the court.
24:00Through the tails, he just stood there.
24:02Van Gretikoff referred to Wilt as a big load.
24:06And Wilt referred to Van Gretikoff as the dumbest coach he had ever played for.
24:12That was understood.
24:13And that polarized that particular team.
24:17Despite such mutual dislike, the Lakers took the Celtics into the seventh game of the 1969 Finals.
24:23Trailing by his seven points, Chamberlain took himself out with 5.19 left in the fourth quarter.
24:30Wilt's knee was really paining him.
24:33And he just wanted to quiet it down for a couple of minutes.
24:36And he came out and he put some ice on it.
24:39So when the knee quieted down a little bit, Dipper said to me, tell the man I'm ready to go
24:44back in.
24:46And Van Gretikoff said, tell him to hell with him. We don't need him.
24:50If I remember correctly the words I said, and I've just set them off enough to play him better without
24:54you.
24:55Coach Van Gretikoff and Wilt did not get along at all.
24:58I think Van Gretikoff would have been thrilled to win a championship with Wilt sitting on the bench.
25:04But the Lakers lost 108-106.
25:06And in the aftermath, Chamberlain suffered a blow that would hurt long after his knee recovered.
25:12Compliments of his chief adversary who had played his last game.
25:16Russell called him a faker, that he wouldn't stay in during the game.
25:22Russell gave him a little needle after that.
25:24He should have played as a seventh game.
25:26Russell couldn't understand it.
25:27But in that moment, when all was on the line, you wouldn't go back in the game.
25:32It was a foreign idea to him.
25:34Whatever criticism he received was unfair.
25:38He was hurting, and I know he was hurting.
25:41He wasn't one of those players that would ever take himself away.
25:44He hated to come out of the game.
25:45With Russell gone in 1970, the path to the NBA title was rerouted through Madison Square Garden.
25:52When Knicks center Willis Reed went down with a knee injury in Game 5,
25:56the way to glory seemed open for Wilt and his talented supporting cast.
26:01They somehow rallied together in the fifth game with no one on the floor taller than 6-7 in the
26:05second half,
26:06and beat the Lakers to go up 3-2.
26:08Take themselves back to Los Angeles.
26:10Wilt asserts himself with 45 points and 27 rebounds against hapless Nate Bowman,
26:14taking us all back to New York with everyone wondering,
26:17can Willis play or can Willis play?
26:18A couple of Knicks come out that he's going to shoot,
26:20a couple of more come out, and I'm watching him look.
26:22And he keeps looking at the guys that came out.
26:26He's looking for Willis Reed.
26:28And suddenly there is this incredible roar.
26:31Now here comes Willis.
26:33And the crowd is going wild.
26:38I saw West, I saw Chamberlain, I saw Baylor stopping the tracks.
26:43Because both teams were warming up.
26:45And they were just staring at Reed.
26:47And I said to myself at that point, man, I think we got these guys.
26:51Frazier then slows it down, is picked up by Jerry West at the top of the post-Reed.
26:56In the end, Willis Reed's two baskets in 27 minutes,
27:00counted more than Chamberlain's 21 points and 24 rebounds,
27:04as the Lakers went down 113-99.
27:08What Russell says is, if I had been playing Willis Reed,
27:12I would have gone right at it.
27:14I would have never played harder in my whole life.
27:17I would have asked for the ball every time down.
27:20I would have put it to him.
27:21If he tried to shoot at him right in his face and knocked it down.
27:25And Will was sort of intimidated.
27:26Will didn't want to be the bad guy.
27:28He knew the whole world was cheering for Willis Reed.
27:31He may not have had the killer instinct at certain moments
27:34to go after somebody's knees, to go after somebody's weakness.
27:38Dispirited by his failure to reach the top, Chamberlain decided to quit the NBA
27:42and looked elsewhere for victory.
27:45Professional boxing.
27:46Custom auto tow-willed that if he trained,
27:49he couldn't make a career out of fighting.
27:51But if he trained for one fight, specifically for Ali,
27:55that he had a chance to succeed.
27:57Angelo Dundee said to Muhammad,
27:59you can't do this.
28:01And Muhammad says, why not?
28:02He can't fight.
28:03And Angelo stood up on a chair.
28:06Little guy made himself seven foot one and a sixteenth of an inch and said,
28:09try to hit me.
28:10And he called this massive press conference at the Asper Dome.
28:14Prediction?
28:15No.
28:16One prediction.
28:18Timber!
28:20Jay Chamberlain went to the next room,
28:22asked permission to use the telephone,
28:24called a person whom I believe to be Jack Cancook,
28:28came out and said, look guys,
28:30I decided that I'm going to continue to play basketball.
28:33I don't want to fight.
28:34At the beginning of the 1972 season,
28:37Lakers coach Bill Sharman proposed a different role for Chamberlain.
28:41He pulled Will aside,
28:43suggested very calmly that he play like Russell,
28:46played defensively, blocked shots,
28:47not trying to be a nice scorer.
28:49And Will thought about it and he did it.
28:54Content to average just 15 points,
28:56Will led the league in rebounds at 19 a game.
28:59Amazing.
28:59The Lakers scored,
29:01mounting a record 33 game winning streak
29:03and finishing with 69 victories.
29:06Beating the Knicks in five games,
29:08they won their first NBA title
29:10since moving to Los Angeles in 1960.
29:13He's had every challenge.
29:14He's lost every bridge.
29:16The Los Angeles Tigers are the world champions of basketball.
29:26After losing to the Knicks in the 1973 finals,
29:29Will Chamberlain,
29:30although contractually bound as a player to the Lakers,
29:33jumped to the ABA as head coach of the San Diego Conquistadors.
29:38The word that comes to my mind is a publicity stunt.
29:41I don't think he did a great deal of the quick back of coaching in the team.
29:44I do remember that Will would come into the games about 15 minutes before the game would start.
29:52A lot of times there wasn't even a team meeting with him involved anyway
29:58because he wouldn't come to the arena until the team was already out on the floor.
30:02Chamberlain quit coaching after just one season to pursue new worlds,
30:07many of which demanded talents that had lain fallow during his years as Wilker Still.
30:12If Will Chamberlain didn't play basketball,
30:15he would have been a great success in something else.
30:18He would have gone to Wharton School of Business.
30:20He just found basketball was his vehicle to have the lifestyle that he enjoys.
30:26He had some business people early in his career that invested well for him.
30:30He understood money.
30:32He bought a nightclub up in Harlem called Big Old Smalls Paradise.
30:35It was an all-black club and great music and jam-packed every night.
30:40He owned racehorses. He owned real estate. He invested in the stock market.
30:47His home was constructed for a man 7-2.
30:51And he takes me in the bedroom. And he said, watch this.
30:54And he pressed the button next to the bed.
30:57And the roof went back.
30:59You've got to be kidding me.
31:01We're in New York to play the Knicks.
31:04And he asked me up to a suite when I wasn't there two or three minutes.
31:08And here comes room service with four entrees.
31:12I said, gee, Wilk, I've already eaten.
31:15No, no, no, my man. These are all for me.
31:17Huh.
31:18Although many and varied, Chamberlain's appetites led him in directions other than the front lines of the civil rights movement.
31:26Wilk Chamberlain did not take any overt active role in the politics of the African American community.
31:36Or in terms of race and ethnic relations issues.
31:41He lived in a different world.
31:42I really enjoyed that.
31:44Wilk never brought up racism.
31:48And, of course, you know, he supported Nixon.
31:53Figure that one out.
31:55The only plan that I have is trying to help make Richard Nixon to make the president of the United
32:01States of America.
32:01He got a lot of flack from the black community because they were not really in the Nixon corner at
32:09that time.
32:10And when Wilk came out for Nixon, it was like, no, what is he doing?
32:14When you have someone like Wilk Chamberlain supporting the opposition, it becomes sort of distrustful, somewhat disappointing.
32:26In order for, I believe, the black man to get the most out of his vote, that he should, you
32:31know, try to infiltrate the Republican Party as much as possible.
32:35He felt that his impact would be to let you know that blacks are just as smart and intelligent as
32:42anybody else.
32:42He was one of the most phenomenal athletes that this nation is ever likely, or any nation is ever likely
32:50to see.
32:51But beyond the court, he drops off the chart in terms of his relevance.
32:59And maybe being the great athlete that he was is enough.
33:07He was enough.
33:09Famous passion.
33:10And he thought he could make the Olympic team as a volleyball player.
33:13He got involved in volleyball a couple of years before he retired, about three years before he retired.
33:18And just said, that's it.
33:20I think I can build volleyball.
33:22And he became the national volleyball president.
33:25Got beach volleyball off the volleyball.
33:31Supporting women's track and such charities as Operation Smile, Wilk Chamberlain stayed in the public eye.
33:38Somebody wanted to do a commercial, which talked about bigness.
33:44Who did you go to get?
33:45You didn't go to get Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
33:48You didn't go get Bill Wall.
33:49You got Wilk Chamberlain to show that he could get into a Volkswagen or whatever it was.
33:54But then why are you driving around?
33:57Because I lost more hair from the May Rolls Royce.
34:00Wilk was pretty selective in what products he endorsed.
34:05The best commercial he ever did was standing back to back with Willie Shoemaker for a credit card.
34:12It was a wonderful image.
34:13He perhaps wanted to prove that a seven-foot guy who was seen just as a basketball player was more
34:21than able to do a lot of other things.
34:25Maybe that's why he did movies.
34:27He was just an incredible physical specimen.
34:31And then I remember seeing him at a Lakers playoff game in the mid-'80s.
34:36And he had a black tank top on.
34:40What a specimen.
34:41I mean, he looked like a municipal statue.
34:44While Wilk seemed to stay young, an old foe was closing in on a record that had seemed unreachable when
34:51he retired.
34:51In 1984, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar eclipsed Chamberlain's mark to become the NBA's all-time leading scorer.
35:00It renewed the divide in the off-and-on relationship that began in the 1960s when Kareem, then Luau Cinder,
35:08was a teenager.
35:08They were very tight.
35:10He took them to the finest restaurants just to get him used to what life is really going to be.
35:14He would lend me some of his jazz albums.
35:17A couple of times I went by his apartment on Central Park West and returned his albums.
35:21I've known Kareem since 1965.
35:25Luau always had really admired Wilton.
35:28Wilt gave Luau a hard time because he was the heir to the throne.
35:31When you're an athlete and you're finished, and then you begin to recede in time in other people's minds, not
35:38yours.
35:39And so the headlines in the papers no longer say Wilt. Now they say Jabbar.
35:45History hasn't been that kind to Wilt, even though he set all sorts of records that took Kareem forever to
35:51break.
35:52Wilt resented that as well. He didn't think Kareem was the all-around player.
35:58He let people know.
36:00What did he do that was better than you?
36:02In the facets of the game, did he score better than I did? Did he rebound better than I did?
36:07Did he pass better than I did? Did he run better than I did? Did he, you know, hard to
36:12figure out?
36:13And I would love Kareem far ahead of Wilt Chamberlain all time, but Wilt has a point.
36:19And Kareem wasn't even close in terms of defense, scoring, rebounding, passing, even though he was great in those.
36:29If Chamberlain's scoring record was overtaken by Abdul Jabbar, Wilt went one better.
36:35In his 1991 book, A View From Above, The Lifelong Bachelor claims statistical superiority in another activity.
36:43I said, there is no way in hell you could have slept with 20,000 women.
36:50I said, because there were too many nights that I saw you going back to your room with only a
36:57bag of McDonald's.
36:58Anybody who thinks that numbers don't mean anything to Wilt Chamberlain, all they had to do was to read that
37:03book.
37:04Somehow, I think that he felt that validated him.
37:07He got a call from a woman who clearly wanted to come up and see him.
37:10He said, well, I got a meeting going on here right now.
37:13You can't make it, you know, besides I've had you.
37:18We'll talk about it.
37:20Did Wilt know a lot of women? Of course he did.
37:22Bachelor, living in L.A., being a star.
37:25The publisher said, you know, we need to do something to really have this book jump out.
37:33After all was said and done, he was embarrassed that he allowed that to come out.
37:39Wilt's defense of that is to say that it's harder to make love to the same woman a thousand times
37:47as to make love once to a thousand different women.
37:51That's part of that same page in his book.
37:55People ignored that to just zero in on the 20,000.
37:59This revelation came along at a time when promiscuity was suddenly not the coolest thing to admit to
38:06because Magic Johnson had just been diagnosed.
38:09And at the same time, you thought, you know what?
38:12If a woman admitted to that, she would be called a slut.
38:15He didn't want to be tied down to one relationship.
38:19He knew he wanted to travel.
38:21He wanted a freer life.
38:23And he lived the life he wanted to do.
38:25My theory is that there are four really important numbers in Wilt Chamberlain's life.
38:31Zero for the number of times he fouled out.
38:33Fifty for the number of points he averaged during one full season.
38:36A hundred for the number of points he scored in one single game.
38:39And twenty thousand for the number that will never be forgotten.
38:48In January 1998, in his first official visit to the University of Kansas since leaving the school some four decades
38:56earlier,
38:57Wilt Chamberlain had his college number retired.
38:59He said that he had kind of always felt like maybe the KU people blamed him for losing the national
39:06championship game to North Carolina in 1957.
39:10And the response that he got that day, I think, eliminated any feeling of that in his mind.
39:15I've learned over the years that you must learn you take the bitter with the sweet.
39:20And how sweet this is.
39:22And I'm now very much a part of it by being there and very proud of it.
39:27Rideshawn Jayhawk.
39:28Lesthawn Jayhawk.
39:37Plegged by heart problems for years.
39:40The Big Dipper Will Chamberlain succumbed in October of 1999.
39:46I know when I saw him Saturday.
39:48I knew that he would not leave much longer.
39:51He looked bad.
39:53Tusigne, I got the call one o'clock.
39:54And it's with great sadness that we announced the death of Wilt Chamberlain.
40:01Mr. Chamberlain was 63 years old.
40:08When I got the phone call that Wilt had died, I felt like I had been kicked in his stomach.
40:12Not only that I didn't want to believe it, but I couldn't believe it.
40:15I thought Wilt was indestructible. It was like Superman dying.
40:19I said, no. It's impossible.
40:22You know, Dippy was so big. We all thought he was going to live forever.
40:27More than 1,300 mourners attended memorial services in Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
40:34I'm...
40:36I'm strictly injured by what happened the last few days.
40:41This was an intricate part of my life.
40:46And a good friend.
40:48Lately, we used to call each other.
40:51And the message I would leave,
40:54Wilt and Norman Chamberlain, this is William Felton Russell.
40:57He used to call me and when I was home, he'd say,
41:01Felton, this is Norman.
41:05I think the people who attended kind of appreciated the way the service was done
41:12because it depicted him not so much as a basketball player, but as a human being.
41:20He was so busy doing, I'm not surprised he had a tired heart.
41:26He gave so much of it to us.
41:28The bulk of his estate, 90% or so, is going to be distributed to charities that would be in
41:36line with his beliefs.
41:37That's the way he always was.
41:39You know, when you come from an environment where children, you know, don't get,
41:45unless somebody gives them a start, it's easy to take your money and do that.
41:52He always resented being regarded as a freak, one-dimensional.
41:57Whether that one dimension is height, black, basketball scorer, celebrity.
42:03There's a side that bothers me that people don't know.
42:07The gentle man off the court, the caring man.
42:11I would never have wanted to be Wilt Chamberlain.
42:14There was no place to be Wilt Chamberlain.
42:21Every few years, Wilt Chamberlain would suggest in interviews that he could still play in the NBA.
42:27The New Jersey Nets offered him about $360,000 for the final few games of the 86th season.
42:35Chamberlain had been retired for 13 years.
42:38And here was someone else agreeing with him that, yes, Wilt still had game.
42:44For SportsCentury, I'm Chris Fowler.
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