Black History Month Fast Facts: Wilt Chamberlain « 101.9 AMP Radio 7 Feb 1997: Former Los Angeles Laker Wilt Chamberlain addresses the media at a press conference before the NBA All-Star Game at the Renaissance Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. Mandatory Credit: Brian Bahr /Allsport (Photo Credit: Brian Bahr /Allsport) All month long in February, 102 JAMZ is celebrating Black History Month! There have been many legendary basketball players in our history but do you know who Wilt Chamberlain is? Wilt Chamberlain (also known as Wilt the Stilt) was a professional NBA basketball player from 1959-1973. Chamberlain played for teams such as The Philadelphia 76ers, Philadelphia Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, and the Harlem Globetrotters. In his early years, Wilt Chamberlain did not take a interest in basketball. His preference was originally track and field. By age 10, Wilt grew to a height of 6 feet, 10 inches and eventually turned to basketball.

In his high school years he averaged 31 points per game and led his team to a championship against his rivalry high school. Wilt later went on to play college basketball at Kansas University where he would play on the freshman and varsity teams averaging between 40-52 points and 20-30 rebounds per game. Chamberlain wanted to play professional basketball before graduating college but the league would not permit players to enter the NBA without finishing their studies, so Chamberlain joined the Harlem Globetrotters in 1958. Wilt went on to play for the the Philadelphia Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers, and Los Angeles Lakers earning him several NBA all-time records and an MVP title. Wilt Chamberlain passed away in 1999 however his legacy left him being the first professional basketball player to earn 100 points in a single game during 1961 and the first player to score 30,000 points in the NBA making him one of the greatest basketball players of all time! Did Wilt Chamberlain Really Sleep With 20,000 Women? | Mental Floss Did Wilt Chamberlain Really Sleep With 20,000 Women?

Getty Images Like us on Facebook Wilt Chamberlain was born on this date in 1936. Let's check his math on his most famous statistic. Wilt Chamberlain, at 7'1", may have been the most dominating and amazing basketball player of all time. In his legendary career, Wilt scored 31,419 points, including the unbelievable time he actually scored 100 points in one game. He holds dozens of unbreakable basketball records. In addition to his accomplishments on the court, Wilt also authored four books. None of the others created nearly the stir and controversy as his 1991 book, A View From Above. In it, Wilt claimed to have slept with 20,000 different women in his life. A media firestorm erupted, and Wilt was attacked from all sides. The country was at the height of the AIDS crisis, and activists criticized Wilt for his promiscuity. He also came under fire in African-American circles for promoting black racial stereotypes. And feminists resented his blatant sexism for using women in such a manner.

To Wilt's credit (I guess), he never backed down from his claim, never said he was just "bragging" or "stretching the truth." He simply stated: "I was just laying it out there for people who were curious." Wilt was emphatic that he never went to bed with a married woman. "I was just doing what was natural -- chasing good-looking ladies, whoever they were and wherever they were." But could he really sleep with 20,000 different women? Let's analyze it. Doing the Math If Wilt started at the age of 15, from then up to the age of 55 (when the book was published) he would have had 40 years to sleep with 20,000 women, or 500 different women a year--easy math. That works out to roughly 1.4 women a day. According to close friends, Wilt loved threesomes. According to legend, he was intimate with 23 different women on one 10-day road trip. Wilt was also a lifelong insomniac, sometimes just not sleeping at all. He probably would take a woman to bed any time he couldn't fall asleep.

But the time factor is an interesting point. A close childhood friend, Tom Fitzhugh, said, "I don't remember him having a date. He was probably a virgin when he left high school." So let us assume Wilt really started around the age of 18, which ups the average to 1.5 women per day for 37 years. Additionally, he did have a six-month schedule, for 14 seasons, of playing professional basketball. That's 82 games a season, not including playoffs, exhibitions, practices, and travel time. The fact that he said 20,000 different women also leaves little time for repeats, or love. And what about sickness? Everyone gets sick once in a while, which would have cost Wilt precious time during those 37-40 sexually active years. But most incredibly, even with those reported 20,000 sexual liaisons, Wilt is not known to have contracted any serious sexually transmitted diseases. Nor was there ever a woman who came forward with an unplanned pregnancy, a "little Wilt," or a paternity suit. And what about turn-downs?

Every guy in human history has been turned down by a woman at some point. One can only wonder at Wilt's rejections... probably extremely few, to manage that 20,000 record. Wikimedia Commons In a 1999 interview, shortly before he died, Wilt made the following revealing statement: "Having a thousand different ladies is pretty cool, I've learned in my life. I've (also) found out that having one woman a thousand different times is more satisfying." So perhaps he made time for repeats after all. Chamberlain died of heart failure in 1999 in the city of Bel Air, California, at the age of 63. As a sidebar, Wilt was a huge hero of mine--my supreme basketball hero, as a kid and to this day. I wore Wilt's number 13 on my jersey as I ineptly played for my synagogue's basketball team. (I scored 18 points in 18 games, a nifty 1.0 scoring average.) Many years later, I met "Wilt the Stilt" at a book-signing for the infamous A View From Above, and I even got to shake his hand.

It was, far and away, the biggest hand I have ever seen (or shaken). He didn't just shake my hand--he engulfed it! Wilt Chamberlain: The Life, Career, and Card of Basketball's Most Legendary Player Sports Market Report December 21, 2006 While some called him Wilt the Stilt (a tag he deplored), or The Big Dipper, his birth certificate read: Wilton Norman Chamberlain. Born on August 21, 1936, Wilt would go on to become the most colorful, legendary, and dominant force in the history of the National Basketball Association. A Big Beginning During the mid-1950s, young Wilt's high school basketball career was not by any means typical, even for an excellent athlete. It was outstanding! While playing at West Philadelphia's Overbrook High, Wilt received national attention by leading his team to City Championships in 1954 and again in 1955. In one game, he scored 60 points in 10-minutes and went on to finish the game with 30 more. By the time he was a senior, pro scouts were regulars at Overbrook games.

In the first 16 games of his senior year, Wilt scored 800 points, a feat that saw him named an All-American. Wilt would go on finish his high school career with an unbelievable 2,252 points. Photo Courtesy of Icon Sports Media Wilt's athletic prowess also extended from Overbrook's hardwood. He was a standout athlete in track and field, turning in high jumps of 6-feet 6-inches and a long jump that measured 22-feet. He ran the 440 in 49.0 seconds, the 880 in 1:58.3, and threw a shotput 53-feet 4-inches. While the pro scouts were keeping a watchful eye on this Philadelphia phenom, Wilt's fate as a future NBA star was sealed when he was showcased in a 1954 Paramount newsreel – Giant Basketball Sensation. After his graduation from Overbrook, Wilt matriculated at the University of Kansas, where he led his team to the 1957 Championship Game and twice received All-American honors. Along with basketball, Wilt also continued to turn in stellar performances in track and field.

He ran a 100-yard dash in 10.9 seconds and bettered his high school record by throwing a shotput 56-feet. He also won the high jump in the Big Eight Track and Field Championships for three years in a row and triple jumped more than 50-feet. At the conclusion of his junior year, a season that despite Wilt's presence on the hardwood saw Kansas fall short of play in the NCAA Tournament, Chamberlain made the decision to go pro. Selected by the Philadelphia Warriors in 1955, Wilt was ineligible to play in the NBA until his college class graduated. As he waited out his time, he signed on with the Harlem Globetrotters where he teamed up with the court's clown prince, Meadowlark Lemon. Being as that Lemon was the front man, Wilt was moved from the center position to playing point guard, a move that made him one, if not THE, tallest man to ever play the position. The Professional Chamberlain In 1960, Chamberlain took to the professional hardwood with the Warriors. His inaugural performance in the NBA saw him lead the League in scoring.

He averaged 37.6 points per game, and rebounded on an average of 27.0 per game. He was named to the NBA All-Star game that year and was tapped as the contest's Most Valuable Player. That year also saw Wilt named Rookie of the Year and take the Warriors to a place they never thought they would be. With Wilt, they reached new heights. In the 1958-59 season, the team had turned in a last place division finish. In 1960, they chalked up the second best record in the NBA. And while Wilt and the Warriors lost the Conference Finals to the Boston Celtics, they were forgiven by Philly fans who didn't think any team could ever beat Boston. The Celtics were a seemingly unbeatable force at the time. Completely dominating the NBA for well over a decade, the Celtics proved to be a season-after-season stumbling block for the Warriors who were saddled in the same division as the Boston powerhouse. In December of the following season, in a triple-overtime Warriors-Lakers game, Chamberlain scored 78 points to break Elgin Baylor's single game scoring record.

That performance proved to be a precursor to what Wilt had in store for March 2, 1962. 100 Points!!! On a cold winter night in early March, the Warriors took on the New York Knicks at Hersheypark Arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania. When the final buzzer went off at the end of that game, the Warriors had bettered the Knicks by 22-points in a 169-147 victory. That, however, was not the story. The openmouthed, head-shaking fans who left the arena that night were stunned by what they had just witnessed. A feat that just about everyone believed to be impossible – Chamberlain had scored 100-points in a standard regulation game. Racking up 59 points in the second half, he went on to hit number 100 with just 46 seconds remaining in the game. He had made 36-of-63 field goals that night and also hit 28-of-32 free throws.

While Wilt's 100 point game record still stands today, his 78 point triple-overtime game held as the second-highest single game point total until January 22, 2006, when Lakers guard Kobe Bryant scored 81 points in a single game. Wilt fans were, however, quick to point out that Kobe hit those 81 points with the help of 3-point shots, something that did not exist when Wilt hit his 78 and 100 point games. While the Warriors were not collecting any Championship trophies during this time, Wilt was proving to be a standout champ averaging a career high of 50.4 points per game in 1962. The following season saw the Warriors make the move West to San Francisco. Out from the Eastern Division, they made it to the NBA Finals, where the boys from Boston again denied the Warriors an NBA Championship title. In the City by the Bay, Wilt continued to be a major force for the Warriors until the conclusion of the 1964 season. Chamberlain was then traded to Philadelphia's new franchise from Syracuse who had changed their name to the 76ers.

Back in Philly, Chamberlain once again saw his team denied access to the Finals by the Celtics who, by that time, were a full-fledged dynasty team. During the 1966 offseason, Wilt was offered a pro football contract by the Kansas City Chiefs – a move that was perhaps a publicity stunt on the part of both the team and Wilt himself, more so than a genuine offer. By 1967, the Sixers were a force to be reckoned with in the NBA. Accompanying Chamberlain were Luke Jackson, Hal Greer, Billy Cunningham and Chet Walker. The Brotherly Love boys turned in a record-breaking season by chalking up 68 contests in the win column. It was also the year that saw Wilt and company finally get past the Celtics to grab the NBA crown by ironically defeating the San Francisco Warriors. For Chamberlain, the cherry on top of that Championship season came when he was named MVP for the third time. With 20/20 hindsight, that 1967-68 Sixers team has been acknowledged as the NBA's best team during the League's first three and a half decades.

Wilt, who was selected as the League's MVP for the fourth time that year, many times stated that he believed that team was the best ever in NBA history. In 1968, Wilt once again headed West when he was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. Joining a team that included the likes of Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. La La Land believed they were about to wrangle away Boston's legendary dominance until serious knee injuries downed both Baylor and Chamberlain. Baylor's injury would prove to be so severe that it would end his career, while in Wilt's case, recovery kept everyone wondering if he could make a comeback. Wilt did come back and played a major role in seeing the Lakers earn an invite to the 1969 Finals. Pitted against the Celtics, the fight for the championship went the distance, and in Game 7, Chamberlain suffered a leg injury in the fourth quarter. The Lakers were down by nine points with less than six minutes to play when he got hurt. Although Chamberlain pleaded with Coach Bill "Butch" van Breda Kolff to allow him to play despite the injury, the request was denied.

Boston went on to win the game by two points and Los Angeles fans were furious with the outcome. Many blamed Wilt for faking his injury so he could skirt the blame for the Lakers loss. It was a rough offseason for Wilt as sportswriters and fans labeled him a quitter. To further rub salt into the wound, even Wilt's buddy Bill Russell jumped on the bandwagon placing blame for the loss on Wilt's doorstep. While many slung arrows at Wilt, he was adamantly defended by Jerry West and even Coach van Breda Kolff who was never a big fan of Chamberlain. As the turbulent 1960s drifted into history, the Lakers began the new decade by again making their way to the NBA Finals. The1970 Championship Series saw the Lakers take on the Knicks, who at the time were considered to be the best defensive team in the League. In a series that went down to the wire, Wilt's counterpart, the Knicks center Willis Reed, suffered a leg injury in Game 5. Despite Reed's departure from the game, the Knicks pulled out a win. In Game 6, it looked like the Knicks luck had run out.

Chamberlain turned in a stunning offensive performance and set the stage for what looked like a Laker Championship. In the seventh and deciding game of that series, Reed, obviously in far-less-than-100-percent mode suited up and met Wilt at center court for the opening tip off. He snagged that tip away from Wilt and scored the game's first four points. In clear pain, Reed saw little action during that game but, what action he did provide spurred his teammates on to win in what would be a blistering blow to the Lakers and their fans who thought they had the championship wrapped up. Chamberlain missed on 10 of the 11 chances he had from the foul line, giving more fodder to those who felt Wilt lacked a burning desire to be a winner. The next season saw the Lakers name former Celtics star guard Bill Sharman as their head coach. That season also saw Chamberlain elected to the All-NBA First Defensive Team for the first time in his career as the Lakers won 69 games to set a record for most victories in a single season. In 1972, the Lakers finally hit paydirt as Chamberlain and crew won the Championship.

In the final game of the series, he scored 23-points and snagged 29 rebounds. Those stats gave him a series average of 23.2 rebounds per game and saw him named MVP. The following season, in what would be Wilt's final year of play, the then-37 year old Goliath again led the NBA in rebounding with 18.6 per game, while shooting a League record of 72.7 percent from the field. At the conclusion of the '72 season, the San Diego Conquistadors of the American Basketball Association came courting Wilt with what at the time was a sizable offer – $600,000 to come on board as a player-coach. Chamberlain bit and the Conquistadors made rapid hay over landing him. There was only one problem – a big problem. Chamberlain still owed Los Angeles an option year on his contract. When Wilt and the Conquistadors chose to ignore that obstacle, the Lakers sued. The suit went to arbitration and was finally settled in the Lakers' favor – a move that kept Chamberlain from playing for the Conquistadors or anyone else.

In fact, Wilt would never suit up and play another professional game again. He did, however, coach the Conquistadors for one season and would, at times, play in team practices and scrimmages. The Post-play Era Throughout his career in the NBA, Chamberlain lived a flashy and extravagant lifestyle. It was a lifestyle that he could have never afforded by means of his basketball salary alone, which was not even in the ballpark of what today's multi-millionaire players rake in. Wilt's big income came through savvy real estate investments. In Wilt's post-basketball career, he dabbled in volleyball and actually established and played in a professional league. He also flirted with auto racing, boxing, and even acted in a supporting role behind Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1984 film Conan the Destroyer. Chamberlain never married nor had any known children – a feat as amazing as his 100-point game when you consider his stats in the bedroom. In his 1991 book, A View From Above, Chamberlain claimed to have been intimate with over 20,000 women. That claim rocked the headlines and sent statisticians scrambling for their calculators.

After doing a little figuring they then reported that in order for his boast to be true, Wilt would have had to have warmed up to more than one new woman every day of his life from the time he was 15 years old. Wilt stood by the claim. The Fall Of Goliath On October 12, 1999, at the age of 63, the life of Wilt Chamberlain ended peacefully in that infamous bedroom of his Los Angeles home. The cause of death was listed as a heart attack, which didn't come as a total shock as he had a history of heart trouble and had been under a cardiologist's care for years. Throughout his legendary 13-year career, Chamberlain had averaged 30.1 points and 22.9 rebounds per game. From the time he was a high school jumper, he had always been lauded for his leaping skills and was able to dunk a ball as high as 12-feet. His size and strength were coupled with style and finesse and it was a thing of beauty to watch him make a dunk, hook, bank or fadeaway jumpshot.

His great weakness was in foul shooting – a weakness perhaps only overshadowed by the one he had for those of the opposite sex. The Big Man's Big Card Card experts agree that Chamberlain's 1961 Fleer # 8 Wilt Chamberlain card is one of the most important cards in the hobby. This is the only card that is universally recognized as Wilt's rookie offering. The card is highly desirable amongst collectors and that demand was filled for many when a find of high quality 1961 Fleer # 8 cards surfaced several years back. While this find brought some excellent examples into the hobby, this is still considered a difficult card to find in high grades. Centering issues plague a tremendous amount of these cards, as do print marks in the background of the photo. Copyright © 2016 PSA – A Division of Collectors Universe. Nasdaq: CLCT. All rights reserved.

Our Sponsors Ideas & Trends; Verbatim: Wilt the Stilt's Views on Race and Hoops - The New York Times The New York Times Week In Review |Ideas & Trends; Verbatim: Wilt the Stilt's Views on Race and Hoops Search Ideas & Trends; Verbatim: Wilt the Stilt's Views on Race and Hoops By TOM KUNTZ Continue reading the main story THE basketball star Wilt Chamberlain, who died last week of a heart attack at the age of 63, had a taciturn demeanor as a player, but he was best-known off the court for bragging in his 1991 autobiography that he had had sex with some 20,000 women. Actually, that wasn't nearly the half of Chamberlain's boasting in ''A View From Above'' (Villard Books), which opened with his disclaimer that although he was a big man, ''I am certainly not the Big Man'' -- God -- in case anyone was confused. But perhaps most curious are Chamberlain's comments on race.

At one point in the book, he is derisive toward Al Campanis, the Los Angeles Dodgers executive forced to resign in 1987 after he said on national television that blacks ''may not have the necessities'' for management in baseball, and that blacks aren't good swimmers ''because they don't have the buoyancy.'' In his book, Chamberlain asks why the Dodgers had no black third-base coaches under Campanis. Was it because blacks ''can't say stop?'' he asked. ''Or because they don't know when to go home?'' Yet at another point, Chamberlain offers his own views about racial differences between black and white basketball players, which attracted very little attention at the time. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Perhaps this is because there were juicier headlines in a former star athlete claiming to have bedded 20,000 women, and because Chamberlain was not an executive in a major sport using racial stereotypes on ''Nightline'' to justify racial disparities in management. This is what Chamberlain wrote: ''Men of color seem to be blessed with specific physical attributes that benefit them in several sports, particularly basketball.

They have explosive muscle power that translates into speed, quickness, and jumping ability (three major ingredients needed to be a good jock, a good baskeball player in particular). ''And there is another element that makes men of color tend to stand out above the rest. For lack of a better word, let's call it 'flair' -- which translates into showmanship. ''A perfect example of this can be seen if you examine the playing styles of the two best passers in the game of basketball today, Magic Johnson and John Stockton,'' Chamberlain continued. ''At present, Stockton out-assists Magic -- on a per game basis -- by approximately one assist. But Magic has that flair and Stockton doesn't. It makes Magic appear as if he's doing much more than Stockton. It's not ability, it's style. And in basketball, men of color have all the style.

Think about it.'' He adds, ''I suppose this flair can be traced back to environmental conditioning or heritage or even to the Harlem Globetrotters, the true forefathers of all the showmanship that has become the trademark of so many stars -- all men of color -- in the NBA.'' TOM KUNTZ NBA.com: Wilt Chamberlain Bio Complete Bio | Summary | Complete Stats He was basketball's unstoppable force, the most awesome offensive force the game has ever seen. Asked to name the greatest players ever to play basketball, most fans and aficionados would put Wilt Chamberlain at or near the top of the list. Wilt Chamberlain as a Laker won 33 straight games and the NBA title in 1971-72. Dick Raphael/NBAE/Getty Images Dominating the game as few players in any sport ever have, Chamberlain seemed capable of scoring and rebounding at will, despite the double- and triple-teams and constant fouling tactics that opposing teams used to try to shut him down. As Oscar Robertson put it in the Philadelphia Daily News when asked whether Chamberlain was the best ever, "The books don't lie." The record books are indeed heavy with Chamberlain's accomplishments.

He was the only NBA player to score 4,000 points in a season. He set NBA single-game records for most points (100), most consecutive field goals (18) and most rebounds (55). Perhaps his most mind-boggling stat was the 50.4 points per game he averaged during the 1961-62 season--and if not that, then perhaps the 48.5 minutes per game he averaged that same year. He retired as the all-time in career points with 31,419, which was later surpassed by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar , Karl Malone and Michael Jordan. He is tops in rebounds with 23,924. He led the NBA in scoring seven years in a row. He was the league's top rebounder in 11 of his 14 seasons. And as if to prove that he was not a selfish player, he had the NBA's highest assist total in 1967-68.

But the most outstanding figures are his scoring records; Most games with 50+ points, 118; Most consecutive games with 40+ points, 14; Most consecutive games with 30+ points: 65; Most consecutive games with 20+ points: 126; Highest rookie scoring average: 37.6 ppg; Highest field goal percentage in a season: .727. And with many of these, the player in second place is far behind. His name appears so often in the scoring record books that his name could be the default response any time a question arises concerning a scoring record in the NBA. During his career, his dominance precipitated many rules changes. These rules changed included widening the lane, instituting offensive goaltending and revising rules governing inbounding the ball and shooting free throws (Chamberlain would leap with the ball from behind the foul line to deposit the ball in the basket). No other player in NBA history has spawned so many myths nor created such an impact.

It's difficult to imagine now, with the seemingly continuing surge of bigger skilled players, the effect of playing against Chamberlain, who was not only taller and stronger than almost anyone he matched up against but remarkably coordinated as well. A track and field star in high school and college, Chamberlain stood 7-1 and was listed at 275 pounds, though he filled out and added more muscle as his career progressed and eventually played at over 300 pounds. An incident recounted in the Philadelphia Daily News involving Tom Meschery of the Seattle SuperSonics illustrated what it was like to play in the trenches against Chamberlain. Meschery had the ball in the line and put up four fakes before attempting his shot. Chamberlain slapped the ball down. Meschery got it again, faked again, and got it blocked again. Enraged and frustrated, the Seattle player ran up to Chamberlain swinging. As if in a scene from The Three Stooges, Chamberlain put his hand on the 6-6 Meschery's head and let him swing away harmlessly. After the third swing, Chamberlain said, "That's enough," and Meschery stopped. Chamberlain's power was legendary.

Rod Thorn, who has been a player, coach, GM and NBA executive, remembers a fight in which Chamberlain reached down and picked up a fellow player from a pile of bodies as if he were made of feathers. The man was 6-8 and weighed 220 pounds. Chamberlain was one of the few players of his day who had the sheer strength to block a dunk. In a game against New York in 1968, Walt Bellamy , the Knicks' 6-11, 245-pound center, attempted to dunk on Chamberlain. "Bellamy reared back," one spectator who was there later recalled to the Philadelphia Daily News, "and was slamming the ball down when Wilt put his hand above the top of the rim and knocked the ball off the court. He almost knocked Bellamy off the court, too." Strength was something Chamberlain developed as a college and professional player. Photographs of him in high school show a slender, agile boy who, at 6-11, towered above the other players.

In three varsity seasons at Philadelphia's Overbrook High, starting in 1952-53, Chamberlain led the team to records of 19-2, 19-0, and 18-1. His coaches there took full advantage of his gifts. The team would practice missing free throws so that Chamberlain could grab them and score field goals. At a time when goaltending was legal, Chamberlain sometimes infuriated his teammates by tipping balls in on their way down, even if they were on target. During his prep years, he scored 2,206 points and had individual games in which he scored 90, 74 and 71 points. In his senior year he averaged 44.5 points. In his 90-point game he scored 60 points in 12 minutes of the second half. "But it's nothing," Chamberlain said in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1991, "when you consider that the team we were playing against was trying to freeze the ball." It was also during this time that one of his nicknames, "the Stilt," was coined by a local newspaper writer.

Chamberlain detested it, as he did other monikers that called attention to his height, such as "Goliath." The names he didn't mind were "Dippy" and "Dipper," along with the later variant, "Big Dipper." The story goes that Chamberlain's buddies seeing him dip his head as his walked through doorways tagged him with the nickname and it stuck. In 1955, Chamberlain announced he would play college ball at the University of Kansas. Because NCAA rules at the time prohibited freshmen from playing at the varsity level, Chamberlain was placed on the freshman team upon his arrival at Kansas. His first contest with the freshmen was against the varsity, which was favored to win its conference that year. Chamberlain later reminisced about the game in the Philadelphia Daily News: "We whipped 'em, 81-71. I had 40 or 42 points, about 30 rebounds, about 15 blocks. I knew I had to show them either I could do it or I couldn't." Chamberlain made his debut for the Jayhawks' varsity squad in a game against Northwestern on Dec. 3, 1956.

He set a school record when he scored 52 points in an 87-69 victory. Chamberlain then guided Kansas to the 1957 NCAA title game against North Carolina. Although North Carolina beat Kansas by one point in triple overtime, Chamberlain was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. The following year he was selected to all-conference and All-America teams. He showed his athletic versatility by winning the high jump competition in the Big Eight track and field championships, clearing the bar at 6-6. In May, 1958 Chamberlain decided to forego his senior season at Kansas, opting instead to turn pro. But because of an NBA rule that prevented college players from playing in the league until their class graduated, he was in limbo for one year. He passed the time by playing for the Harlem Globetrotters in 1958-59 for a salary reported to be around $50,000, an astronomical sum at the time. In 1955, the NBA created a special "territorial" draft rule that allowed a team to claim a local college player in exchange for giving up its first-round pick.

The idea was to cash in on college stars who had built strong local followings, but the Philadelphia Warriors, who were owned by the cagey Eddie Gottlieb, took it one step further. They claimed Chamberlain as a territorial pick even though he had played his college ball in Kansas. Gottlieb, one of the NBA's founding fathers, argued that Chamberlain had grown up in Philadelphia and had become popular there as a high school player, and since there were no NBA teams in Kansas, they held his territorial rights. The league agreed, marking the only time in NBA history that a player was made a territorial selection based on his pre-college roots. When Chamberlain finally slipped on a Philadelphia uniform for the start of the 1959-60 season, the basketball world eagerly awaited the young giant's debut -- and he didn't disappoint. In his first game, against the Knicks in New York, he pumped in 43 points and grabbed 28 rebounds.

In a sensational rookie year, Chamberlain averaged 37.6 points and 27.0 rebounds and was named NBA Rookie of the Year, All-Star Game Most Valuable Player and NBA Most Valuable Player as well as being selected to the All-NBA First Team. Only Wes Unseld would duplicate Chamberlain's feat of winning Rookie of the Year and MVP honors in the same season. (Unseld did it in 1968-69.) With Chamberlain, the Warriors vaulted from last to second and faced the Boston Celtics in the 1960 NBA Playoffs. The series saw the first postseason confrontation between Chamberlain and defensive standout Bill Russell , a matchup that would grow into the greatest individual rivalry in the NBA and possibly any sport. During the next decade, the pair would square off in the playoffs eight times. Chamberlain came away the victor only once. In that initial confrontation, Chamberlain outscored Russell by 81 points, but the Celtics took the series, four games to two. Chamberlain's inaugural season seemed to take a heavy toll on him.

After the postseason loss to Boston, the rookie stunned his fans by announcing that he was thinking of retiring because of the excessively rough treatment he had endured from opponents. He feared that if he played another season, he would be forced to retaliate, and that wasn't something he wanted to do. In Chamberlain's first year, and for several years afterward, opposing teams simply didn't know how to handle him. Tom Heinsohn , the great Celtics forward who later became a coach and broadcaster, said Boston was one of the first clubs to apply a team-defense concept to stop Chamberlain. "We went for his weakness," Heinsohn told the Philadelphia Daily News in 1991, "tried to send him to the foul line, and in doing that he took the most brutal pounding of any player ever.. I hear people today talk about hard fouls. Half the fouls against him were hard fouls." Dominating the game as few players in any sport ever have, Chamberlain seemed capable of scoring and rebounding at will, despite the double- and triple-teams and constant fouling tactics that opposing teams used to try to shut him down. Despite his size and strength, Chamberlain was not an enforcer or a revenge seeker.

He knew how to control his body and his emotions and rarely got into altercations. One indication of this was the astonishing statistic that not once in his 14-year career, in more than 1,200 regular and postseason games, did he foul out. Some people claimed he simply wasn't aggressive enough. "My friends would say, 'Hey man, you should throw [Bill] Russell in the basket, too.' " said Chamberlain. "They said I was too nice, too often against certain of my adversaries." Of course, Chamberlain didn't retire. He simply endured the punishment and learned to cope with it, bulking up his muscles to withstand the constant shoving, elbowing and body checks other teams used against him. In a virtual repeat of his rookie year, he poured in 38.4 points and 27.2 rebounds per game in 1960-61. The next season he made a quantum leap in his performance. Posting a phenomenal average of 50.4 points per game, he became the only player in history to score 4,000 points in a season. On March 2, 1962, Chamberlain set a record that may stand forever.

In a game against the New York Knicks in Hershey, Pa., he scored 100 points in four quarters to help the Warriors win the game, 169-147. Despite the fact that Chamberlain had reportedly stayed out all night the previous evening, he obviously came ready to play against the Knicks. Chamberlain was so "on" that he even made 28 of 32 free throws, despite having, up to that point in the season, just a paltry .506 percentage from the stripe. He hit 36-for-63 from the field, about which he commented to HOOP magazine, "My God, that's terrible. I never thought I'd take that many shots in a game." Toward the end of the game, the Warriors went out of their way to feed Chamberlain the ball, to the point of fouling the Knicks whenever they had possession. In 1962, Chamberlain moved with the franchise to San Francisco, and he led the league in scoring in both 1962-63 and 1963-64. The Warriors lost to the Celtics in the 1964 Finals in five games.

But midway through the following season, he was sent back home to Philadelphia. Two days after the 1965 All-Star Game (a game in which he scored 20 points and pulled down 16 rebounds), Chamberlain was swapped to the 76ers, formerly the Syracuse Nationals until the 1963-64 season, for Connie Dierking, Lee Shaffer, Paul Neumann and $150,000. In Philadelphia, he joined a promising 76ers team that included Hal Greer and Larry Costello in the backcourt and Chet Walker and Luke Jackson up front. The Sixers were a .500 ballclub in Chamberlain's initial year on the team. The following season, 1965-66, Philadelphia posted the best record in the league, at 55-25, but for the second year in a row the 76ers fell to Boston in the Eastern Division Finals. Philadelphia, which had added talented forward Billy Cunningham , started the year by winning 45 of its first 49 games en route to an 68-13 record, at the time the best in league history.

In the division semifinals, the Sixers ousted Cincinnati. The division finals saw the 76ers matched up against the Celtics -- and Chamberlain matched up against Russell once again. After years of frustration, Chamberlain finally got by his arch rival as Philadelphia raced by Boston in five games, ending the Celtics' eight-year stranglehold on the NBA title. Playing the Warriors in the 1967 NBA Finals, the Sixers came away with the championship, winning the series in six games. After his monstrous scoring year in 1961-62, Chamberlain's average dropped slowly each year until the 1967-68 season, when it rose slightly to 24.3 points per game from 24.1 the season before. During his first seven years Chamberlain scored an average of 39.4 points per game and led the league in scoring all seven seasons, a string matched only by Michael Jordan two decades later. In Chamberlain's second seven years, he averaged 20.7 points. Was the waning production attributable to the effects of age and better defenses? Chamberlain didn't think so.

"I look back and know that my last seven years in the league versus my first seven years were a joke in terms of scoring," he told the Philadelphia Daily News. "I stopped shooting -- coaches asked me to do that, and I did. I wonder sometimes if that was a mistake." One of the main reasons coaches asked him to shoot less was to try to win more. Of the 14 years he played in the NBA, only twice did his teams emerge with the NBA title. In 1966-67, Sixers Coach Alex Hannum asked Chamberlain to pass the ball more often than shoot, and to play more aggressive defense. The strategy worked. Although he failed to win the NBA scoring title for the first time in his career, averaging 24.1 points, Chamberlain recorded the league's highest shooting percentage (.683), had the most rebounds (24.2 rpg), and was third in assists (7.8 apg). Chamberlain took his new role so seriously that he led the league in assists the next season.

In 1967-68, he was also chosen to the All-NBA First Team for the seventh and final time and selected league MVP for the fourth and final time. After taking the Eastern Division that season, the Sixers were eliminated in the Conference Finals for the third time in four seasons by the Celtics. Soon after, Chamberlain was traded to the Lakers for Jerry Chambers, Archie Clark and Darrall Imhoff. He spent his final five campaigns in Los Angeles and helped the Lakers to the NBA Finals four times in those five seasons. The most notable season was 1971-72, in which he scored only 14.8 points per game. But his contributions came in other forms. At age 35, he managed to grab 19.2 rebounds per contest and was selected to the NBA All-Defensive First Team. Chamberlain had become a great team player, complementing the styles of guards Jerry West and Gail Goodrich and forwards Happy Hairston and Jim McMillian.

The 1971-72 Lakers set an NBA record by winning 33 games in a row en route to a then NBA-record 69-13 regular-season mark, one victory better than Chamberlain's 1966-67 Sixers team (the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan would post a 72-10 record in 1995-96 . The Lakers then stormed to the championship with a five-game triumph against New York in the 1972 NBA Finals. Retiring from the NBA at the end of the 1972-73 season, Chamberlain went on to demonstrate the full range of his talents. Eclectic didn't begin to describe his activities. Like many pro players, he spent a year coaching at the pro level, for the San Diego Conquistadors of the American Basketball Association. San Diego had wanted him to be a player-coach, but legal entanglements prevented that, and Chamberlain soon because bored with a coach-only role. In 1984 he acted in the movie Conan the Barbarian. Big-league volleyball attracted his energies for a while, as did tennis, running marathons and even polo.

At one point he hoped to challenge Muhammad Ali to a world heavyweight fight. Even when he was in his 50s, a story would pop up every now and then about some NBA team talking to Chamberlain about making a comeback, figuring he could still give them 15 or 20 solid minutes as a backup center. Chamberlain, who loved the limelight, seemed to bask in those reports, but he never took up any team on its offer. Rather he continued to be a voracious reader who also published several books and involved himself with other pursuits including maintaining a lively bachelor's existence. In 1978, his first year of eligibility, Chamberlain was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and in 1996-97 he was selected to the NBA 50th Anniversary All-Time Team. On Oct. 12, 1999, Chamberlain passed away at the age of 63 due to heart failure at his home, which he named Ursa Major after the constellation containing the stars forming the Big Dipper, his trademark in the basketball world. He left the NBA as a legendary figure to talk about for years to come.

BBC News | Sport | Basketball legend Chamberlain dies Basketball legend Chamberlain dies Chamberlain's 1962 100-point one-game haul is still a record Basketball great Wilt Chamberlain has died at the age of 63. The NBA legend was a dominant figure in the sport during the 1960s and early 1970s. In 1962 he scored more than 100 points in a game, a single player record which still stands. This decade he caused controversy with boasts of his sexual exploits, claiming to have had sex with 20,000 women. The giant centre, who was seven feet one inch tall, was known as "Wilt the Stilt" and "The Big Dipper". He was found dead at his Los Angeles home on Tuesday, and is believed to have suffered a heart attack.

Chamberlain's 14-year career featured a series of record-breaking exploits: He is the NBA's second-highest scorer with 31,419 points One of only two men named MVP and rookie of the year in the same season (1959) He led the NBA in scoring seven straight seasons, 1960 to 1966 Chamblerlain was also MVP for three seasons between 1966 and 1968 His 100-point record was scored in the Philadelphia Warriors' 169-147 defeat of the New York Knicks in 1962 Member of the LA Lakers' championship team in 1971-72, which set an NBA record of 33 straight wins that still stands. Chamberlain began his career with the Philadelphia Warriors, remained with the team when it moved to San Francisco. 'Wilt the Stilt' was over seven feet tall He moved to the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1964-65 season and finished his career with the Lakers in 1973, after joining them in 1968.

"We truly lost one of the icons of professional basketball and, more importantly for myself, someone who I've known for almost 40 years," said former team-mate Jerry West, now the Lakers vice president. The NBA actually changed some of its rules during Chamberlain's career, including widening the lane to try to keep him farther from the basket. "Wilt Chamberlain had a great deal to do with the success of the NBA," added Red Auerbach, coach of Chamberlain's great rivals the Boston Celtics. Sexual controversy A lifelong bachelor, he made news after his basketball career by claiming in an autobiography that he had made love to 20,000 women. "The women who I have been the most attracted to, the most in love with, I've pushed away the strongest," Chamberlain said in a 1991 interview. Chamberlain explains himself in 1991 "There are about five women I can think of I could have married. I cared for them a lot, but not enough to make a commitment." The details of his sexual exploits attracted the attention of comedians and critics, appalled at the claims which came at the height of public fears about Aids and HIV infection.

They came in his autobiography A View from Above, which devoted an entire chapter to sex. Chamberlain denied it was all an idle boast: "I was just doing what was natural - chasing good-looking ladies, whoever they were and wherever they were available." The book was published months before Lakers star Magic Johnson revealed that he had contracted Aids. But Johnson's high regard for Chamberlain was unaffacted by the controversy. "Wilt was my idol, and definitely changed the game of basketball," said Johnson after hearing news of his hero's death. Center Of Attention | KU History Center Of Attention December 3, 1956 Known as “Wilt the Stilt” and “The Big Dipper,” basketball great Wilton Norman Chamberlain was opinionated and iconoclastic, a seeker of good times and intellectual stimulation whose outsized personality matched his towering 7-foot stature and legendary athletic accomplishments. Chamberlain needed these vast personal resources, given his public status as a black superstar in the racially charged atmosphere that pervaded Lawrence in the late 1950s. Not only was Chamberlain a prominent African-American in a city struggling with desegregation, his athletic career was the subject of intense scrutiny from both local and national media.

As his teammate Bob Billings recalled in 1959, Chamberlain “had to keep in mind that any and everything he did would reflect not only upon himself, but also upon his teammates, his school, and the entire colored race.” Chamberlain thrived despite such enormous pressures, and remembered his years at KU fondly. “I’ve always been high on Kansas,” recalled Chamberlain in 1979. “Maybe a little higher than I should have been…When I came to the University of Kansas there was still a lot of bigotry going on.” The issue of racial discrimination and its effect on Chamberlain’s relationship with KU began during his recruitment from Philadelphia’s Overbrook High School. Chamberlain was among the first high school athletes to attract intense recruiting pressure from all regions of the country. He wished to experience life away from home, so he immediately eliminated colleges from the East Coast and the segregated South. At the time he felt basketball on the West Coast was of a lower quality than in other regions of the country. That left the Midwest, and soon Kansas, Indiana, and Dayton were vying for Chamberlain’s favor. Dayton lost out when Chamberlain discovered that the town’s restaurants were segregated.

KU simply outworked Indiana; KU Basketball Coach Forrest “Phog” Allen later called “the Indiana bunch” the “worst rushers in the world.” Meanwhile, KU adopted a strategy of getting prominent African-Americans who had ties to the school to contact Chamberlain and extol the virtues of an education in Lawrence. Dowdal Davis, general manager of the Kansas City Call, Lloyd Kerfords, a wealthy black businessman who owned a limestone quarry in Atchison, and Etta Moten, a well-known actress and concert singer who had earned a degree in voice from KU in 1931, all contacted Chamberlain on KU’s behalf. The young Chamberlain was apparently taken by this version of a full-court press and decided to commit to Kansas. “Of course I used everything we had to get him,” admitted Phog Allen when asked what tricks he used to attract Chamberlain. “What do you think I am, a Sunday school teacher?” Both Allen and Chamberlain tended to confront situations head-on.

Upon first arriving in Lawrence one night late in the summer of 1955, Chamberlain went straight to Allen’s house to tell him that on his trip west, a restaurant in Kansas City had refused him service. The coach soothed his angry new recruit, but the effect was only temporary. Much to Chamberlain’s dismay he quickly found that “the whole area around Lawrence…was infested with segregation.” He promptly made a practice of visiting segregated restaurants around town, sitting in them until he was served. In his 1973 autobiography Wilt: Just Like Any Other 7-Foot Black Millionaire Who Lives Next Door Chamberlain bragged that he “single-handedly integrated the whole area.” Despite these troubles, Chamberlain’s fellow students immediately embraced him. He was dean of his pledge class in the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. He shared a room in Carruth-O’Leary Dormitory with track star Charley Tidwell. (To accommodate Chamberlain, the residence hall installed a special 7-foot, 6-inch bed!) Chamberlain fit in so well he was subject to the usual freshman practical jokes; sometimes Tidwell would wake him up by pouring a glass of water on his head.

During his sophomore year Chamberlain instituted a campus fashion trend when he popularized black leather Ivy League caps. He even had his own thirty-minute weekly radio show on student station KUOK. “Flip’er with Dipper” featured current hit records and Chamberlain’s banter, as well as occasional guest appearances by his fellow Jayhawks. On one show, Chamberlain granted listeners the dubious pleasure of listening to him play the bongos accompanied by a teammate on spoons; later, Chamberlain recalled, “we made a helluva sound.” He was in every way the biggest of all the big men on campus. Remarkably, Chamberlain lived up to his hype as an athlete. Before his first game Coach Allen had dubbed him “one of the greatest players, already, that I’ve ever seen.” Chamberlain made his KU basketball debut on November 18, 1955, before 14,000 fans at the Allen Field House in the annual scrimmage between the freshman and varsity teams. Chamberlain dominated the contest, pouring in an astonishing 42 points and snaring 29 rebounds to lead his squad to an unprecedented victory.

After the game, Allen quipped that “Chamberlain could team with two Phi Beta Kappas and two co-eds and give us a battle.” Under the Big Seven rules of the time, freshmen were unable to play varsity basketball, but Chamberlain did not need basketball to make an impact on KU athletics. In his freshman track season, he set the Big Seven freshman indoor record in the High Jump, placed fourth at the Kansas Relays in the Triple Jump, and captured third in the Big Seven at the Shot Put. He went on to tie the Big Eight indoor record in the High Jump with a leap of 6-6 3/4 during his junior year at KU in 1957-58. Chamberlain’s sophomore season (1956-57) began and ended in heartbreak. Coach Allen turned 70, the mandatory retirement age for Kansas state employees, and was unexpectedly forced to retire. Allen’s age was no surprise, of course, but most people, including Chamberlain, assumed the popular coach would find a way to circumvent the rules. But it was not to be. KU promoted mild-mannered assistant Dick Harp to head coach.

Though Chamberlain admired the new coach, he had wanted to play for the legendary Allen. At the same time, pressure on the rising star was growing ever greater. Jimmy Breslin, for example, pondered in The Saturday Evening Post whether Chamberlain’s overwhelming supremacy on the court would ruin basketball. The buzz only increased when Chamberlain dominated Northwestern in his regular season debut on December 3, 1956, in the Allen Field House when he scored 52 points, a single game KU record that still stands. Yet Chamberlain did not bring a NCAA championship to Kansas. The Big Dipper averaged 29.6 points and 18.9 rebounds per game, and led his team to the cusp of an NCAA championship, only for the Jayhawks to lose a heartbreaking triple-overtime thriller to North Carolina. Forty years later, the intensely competitive Chamberlain still described this 1957 loss as “devastating…because I thought I let the University of Kansas down and my teammates down.” Despite his successes, Chamberlain grew disenchanted with the college game. Most teams clobbered him with special defenses; sometimes two, three or even four opposing players would guard him.

Often the opposing team would attempt to control the game by simply holding onto the ball. In one game, Oklahoma State passed 160 times before taking a shot, a tactic Chamberlain understood but one that he did not consider “basketball.” Despite opposing teams’ roughshod tactics and opposing fans’ occasionally racially tinged taunting, Chamberlain never lost his composure. But these maneuvers certainly frustrated him, and he felt they interfered with his growth as an athlete. In June 1958, Chamberlain announced in an article he wrote for Look magazine that he would not return to Kansas for his senior year. The piece contained Chamberlain’s reflections on his time at KU, including his observation that he was able “to do what some of my sponsors hoped I would do: Promote interracial good will.” Chamberlain went on to a superlative professional career. In 1960 he not only earned National Basketball Association (NBA) rookie of the year honors, but was named the league’s Most Valuable Player, an award he would win three more times.

Chamberlain won seven straight NBA scoring titles; in 1962 he scored a flabbergasting 100 points in one game during a season in which he averaged a mind-boggling 50.4 points per game. Chamberlain led the NBA in rebounding eleven times; once, he snared 55 rebounds in a single game, and during the 1960-61 season, he averaged an astonishing 27.2 rebounds per game. In 1968 Chamberlain led the NBA in assists. He finished his career with 31,419 points, now second all time, and still owns the record for most career rebounds with 23,924. All told, the former Jayhawk retains 56 NBA records nearly 30 years after he retired from professional basketball. On January 17, 1998, Chamberlain returned to his alma mater to retire his KU jersey. During a halftime ceremony at Allen Field House, an obviously emotional Chamberlain announced that his return was “something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.

It’s nice to be back home.” Chamberlain wore his KU letter jacket as he told a wildly cheering crowd that “I’m humbled and deeply honored…I’m a Jayhawk and I know now why there is so much tradition here and why so many wonderful things have come from here…Rock Chalk Jayhawk!” Sadly, Chamberlain passed away less than two years after KU retired his jersey, succumbing to heart failure at age 63. Sy Goldberg, Chamberlain’s lawyer, remembered him this way: “He wasn’t a basketball player. He was a great, great human being who happened to play basketball…He made movies. He wrote books. He became a financial wizard. He did whatever he wanted because he was Wilt.” Kevin Armitage Washingtonpost.com: Basketball Legend Chamberlain Dies at 63 Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, October 13, 1999; Page A1 Wilt Chamberlain, 63, a Herculean figure on the basketball court whose massive dimensions, intimidating personality and unprecedented point production helped him become a sports icon and cultural legend, died yesterday at his home in the Los Angeles area.

He was found by rescuers sent to his home in Bel-Air shortly after noon, and a fire department spokesman reported signs of a possible heart attack. Standing 7-feet-1, strong, dexterous and determined, Chamberlain scored points and hauled in rebounds by the tens of thousands. For a good dozen years starting in the late 1950s, he was one of the dominant figures of the National Basketball Association, helping the game grow in publicity and attention. A native of Philadelphia, he entered the league with the old Philadelphia Warriors, stayed with the team after it moved to San Francisco and was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers before ending his 14-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the early 1970s. For years after he hung up his size-16 sneakers, he was known as an opinionated, quotable and sometimes controversial figure in the world beyond. He operated a restaurant, took part in civic and charitable activities and wrote at least three books. One of them created a stir when he boasted in it of having slept with 20,000 women.

Although he played in a sport that produced superstars on the order of Bill Russell (who was his contemporary and nemesis), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (who later broke his career scoring record) and the almost mythical Michael Jordan, Chamberlain did not lack for supporters who believed that he was the NBA's all-time greatest star. Ex-NBA great Elgin Baylor bows his head for a moment of silence for former teammate Wilt Chamberlain at Tuesday night's L.A. Clippers-Golden State Warriors preseason game. (Paul Sakuma - Associated Press) Indeed, it was he who scored 100 points for the Philadelphia Warriors in a game against the New York Knicks on March 2, 1962, setting an NBA record that still stands. He led the league in scoring for seven seasons, retiring with 31,419 points. In his first year in the league, which was then still a stepchild of professional sports, he was credited with helping raise attendance by 23 percent. He set a league record of 55 rebounds in a single game.

In his career, on his way to becoming the league's most valuable player four times, he hauled in a total of 23,924 rebounds. Strong and durable, he played 47 consecutive complete games in the 1961-62 season. Such was his control over his towering physique that he never fouled out of any of the 1,045 games in which he took the hardwood. In all, he held more than 50 league records. "We've lost a giant of a man in every sense of the word," NBA commissioner David Stern said in a statement released last night. "The shadow of accomplishment he cast over our game is unlikely ever to be matched," Stern said. "Wilt was so dominant that it was almost a joke to watch other players play against him," said Jerry West, an NBA great who played with the towering center late in Chamberlain's career. They were together on the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers squad that won the NBA championship. "Wilt was unstoppable, no matter how many players you put on him," West was quoted as saying two years ago in a newspaper story.

Despite his height, which some claimed might have actually been 7 feet 4 or even 7 feet 6, "he didn't just dunk the ball," West said. A man described as capable of holding a bowling ball in his hand, palm down, Chamberlain probably could have dunked a basketball every time, West added. But, West said, "Wilt had a great fadeaway shot, and he could shoot it over anybody." In college at the University of Kansas, while serving as the mainstay of the basketball team, he was also an outstanding track athlete. He reeled off head-turning times in the half mile and quarter mile, while almost reaching his own height in the high jump and doing well over 24 feet in the broad jump. West said he didn't know if Chamberlain was indeed the NBA's greatest ever. "But you could certainly make a strong case in his favor," he told a Texas newspaper reporter. No less a figure than Larry Bird, the former Celtics star, has said he believed Chamberlain was the greatest. Well-read and an avid debater, Chamberlain believed that the disparity in height between him and other players placed limits on his popularity.

In what was said to be one of his favorite phrases, voiced with the acerbity that sometimes characterized his utterances, he remarked that "nobody roots for Goliath." "I was a brash young man of color coming into a white societal sport and taking over � commanding and demanding," he told a newspaper interviewer. "Do you think I was liked for that? I don't think so." Wilton Norman Chamberlain, who was also known as "Wilt the Stilt" and "The Big Dipper," went to high school in Philadelphia, where his astonishing feats prompted the Warriors owner to alter league rules so that he could get rights to Chamberlain years in advance. He spent three years at Kansas, participating in a famous NCAA championship game in which his team fell by one point to North Carolina after three overtimes. Leaving school after three years, he spent a season with the Harlem Globetrotters before joining the Warriors, where he more than rewarded the team owner's patience. During much of Chamberlain's playing career, Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics teams for which Russell starred were the league's champions. Critics of Chamberlain's accomplishments faulted him for not leading his team to more league titles.

Russell won 11 championships in 13 years; Chamberlain won two. Although Chamberlain's physical presence alone was formidable and his personality was intimidating to many, Russell was his friend, and knew his secret. "He only had one flaw," Russell once told a Boston-area reporter. "He was a nice man. We'd beat up on him. He would never hurt anybody." Speaking of that side of his character, Chamberlain once had this to say: "If that's considered a weakness, then I'm guilty." Chamberlain was a lifelong bachelor who told the Associated Press in 1991 that "the women who I have been the most attracted to, the most in love with, I've pushed away the strongest. "There are about five women I can think of I could have married. I cared for them a lot, but not enough to make a commitment." © 1999 The Washington Post Company

Question: Which former Basketball star was known as 'Wilt the Stilt'?
Answer: WILT CHAMBERLAIN