When he was playing, he was breaking records - not only in shooting. The showmanship he guaranteed kept the ticket offices filling up with dollars. Every NBA fan wanted to see it in action. When he left the dance floor, he devoted himself to his second passion - women. He claimed that nearly twenty thousand of them had passed through his bed…

Time went by. More than four thousand people got up from their seats more and more every minute. There was something in the air, and the excitement of each throw of the tall black basketball player was at its zenith. It was March 2, 1962 and the Philadelphia Warriors were hosting the New York Knicks. In the first quarter, Wilt Chamberlain - the star of the Philadelphia team - scored 23 points. In the next one, he increased his output by 18 points. And although in his case such numbers were the norm, even the greatest optimists could not have assumed that history was being made in front of them.

Match for 100 points

The second half of the game started with a series of successful throws from "Big Dipper". New York basketball players who saw this could only shrug their shoulders. They didn't know how to stop him. Already at the beginning of the match, Darrall Imhoff, who was hiding Wilt individually, failed at all, and fouled him mercilessly. He flew out of the field. From that moment on, the defense of the "Knicks" was limping. What else is "Warriorsi". Frank McGuire who trained them, the son of an Irish policeman, aware of a historic opportunity, ordered his boys to play Chamberlain. They listened and fed their leader with passes, and he fed himself on more points.

The barriers were breaking; first "Big Dipper" broke his own points record in one match (79), and then only improved it . When he had 86 points on his account, the announcer David Zinkoff grabbed the mike and started the countdown loudly. With this clever trick, he built the tension that spread to everyone in the hall.

The fans stomped nervously, shouted at the basketball players from Philadelphia that they would only pass to Wilt. Colleagues and the Philadelphia coaching staff were gesturing, jumping up and down with excitement. Forty-six seconds from the end of the game, Chamberlain caught the ball and threw one last time. Hit! A hundred points in one NBA game became a fact!

Wilt Chamberlain in a win for the ball against Nate Thurmond (1966).

Wilt Chamberlain's record still remains unbeaten. You also have to give the emperor what the imperial is honestly. He had the proverbial "horse's day" that day. His colleagues may have made his task easier, but he helped himself the most. He hit 28 out of 32 throws - an element of the game that did not lie to him very well, and in addition to 63 throws from the game, 36 landed in the basket. He could have improved that score, but the last part of the game simply stopped. When asked why he stopped, he replied:"Because 100 looks better than 102."

The big guy everyone wanted

Wilt Chamberlain was born on August 21, 1936, the sixth child of Olivia and William. The Chamberlains were a family with many children, living in a not too rich district of Philadelphia, a city in love with basketball. Wilt's childhood was marked by a lung disease that almost ended with his death. The boy's body, however, was strong enough to deal with the threat.

From an early age, Chamberlain was distinguished by his height:at the age of ten, the school nurse recorded a result of 183 centimeters during the measurement. The woman grabbed her head, she had never seen such a colossus.

The extraordinary physical conditions made the local trainers interested in the young man's services. But not basketball. Wilt started his adventure with sport from athletics. He jumped high and long, ran, pushed with a bullet, and the triple jump was no stranger to him thanks to which in the future - despite his impressive height of 216 centimeters and weight of 125 kilograms - he was extremely coordinated. And strong.

One former NBA commentator recalled how a center wanted to dunk over the Wilt. The play was not only supposed to look spectacular, but it could also humiliate the defender. Chamberlain must have been pissed off, because after the jump, the blocked ball fell into the stands. The enemy throwing it reportedly landed next to it.

The road to Chamberlain's basketball summit led through high school and college. From 1953 he played for Overbrook Panthers, where he broke more shooting records. In one of the matches of the local league, he scored 90 points, becoming a tasty morsel for clubs from the NBA. Before he reached the best basketball league in the world, however, he docked with the Kansas-based university team, although offers came to him from almost all over the country . Already in his first game he scored 52 points, making the fans watching him stunned. A few months later, he led his team to the NCAA Championship.

"Stilt" in the NBA

During his studies, "Szczudło" - one of Wilt's pseudonyms and the most disliked by him - became very recognizable. From the standpoint of the stands, the giant was followed by a larger than usual number of fans. Officials invited him to all kinds of celebrations.

In the sports dimension, the basketball player also gained. There has even been a situation where the rules of the game have been changed because Chamberlain has dominated her so much. So it should come as no surprise that in 1958 he was invited to join the Harlem Globetrotters. The team of absolute basketball artists traveled the world, presenting fans with equilibrium actions and spectacular games. With Wilt in the line-up, the audience rejoiced, for example in Moscow. Performing at Harlem Globetrotters brought tangible financial benefits. Big Dipper was supposed to collect $ 50,000 for participating in the project.

On October 24, 1959, "Szczudło" finally appeared in the NBA. But it was a debut! 43 points and 23 rebounds were the beginning of his many years of supremacy. Being able to describe every feat he has done would be a basketball statistic's paradise.

Let's limit ourselves to those records that are still valid. There are over sixty of them . Chamberlain not only scored and collected very effectively, but also assisted, which is not a rule considering the position he played (in the middle). Over time, the coaches of other teams came to the conclusion that their only chance to curb Wilt is his physical elimination, so they ordered their charges to foul the basketball player. It helped? Not. The Big Dipper numbers were still impressive.

Chamberlain won the ball against the Knicks (1960).

Chamberlain played in the NBA until 1973. He ended his career at the Los Angels Lakers, where he won his second and final league title. How is it possible that such a great player only won the league twice in fifteen years of fantastic play? There were several reasons. The first of them was to be too much of "Szczudło" on the field. He was accused of being an individualist and not being guided by the good of the team. It was emphasized that if he changed his mind and sacrificed "his self" for his teammates, he would have had more team successes.

The second reason was Bill Russell - a basketball player who was the opposite of Wilt. He played for the Boston Celtics, his team, which had won the league eleven times in thirteen years. Russell was the backbone of this team. He was a flesh and blood defender. He was one of the few, and perhaps the only one, to deal with Chamberlain's magic . He could suppress this giant, but only on the pitch. In private, the gentlemen respected each other very much and sometimes they spent time together. Just like when they raced their sports cars in 1979. Anyway, the driving Lamborghini 400GT Bill was then arrested and punished by the police. So what, since he hasn't given up the next races with a buddy anyway.

Single bed record holder

In 1991, Wilt's autobiography " A View from Above" appeared on the American market. . In one of the chapters the author admitted bluntly:"If I had to count all my sexual contacts, the number of women I have slept with would be around twenty thousand ”.

Everyone trumpeted that the basketball player loved the opposite sex. There were even witnesses who remembered times Wilt had proved his charm. For example, one day he went to a restaurant with a friend. At some point he had to go to the toilet. He didn't come back for a few minutes, but when he did, he was holding cards with phone numbers in his hand. They were all supposed to give him the girls they met. Another time, he went on a ten-day vacation, during which his friend carefully noted how many women appeared during that time - for a known purpose - in the "Big Dipper" room. Twenty-three.

Wilt Chamberlain for the Lakers (January 1, 1972.)

In his autobiography, Chamberlain painstakingly enumerated that from the age of fifteen he had sex with 1.2 women a day . His confession met with a wave of criticism. The sports community reacted sharply, including tennis player Arthur Ashe. He was accused of mythomania, sexism, lack of good taste, and accused of immorality, and he retorted:

I am a man with a distinctive taste, and most women I have met would propose "Average Joe" on a first date. Regarding marriage, I made a conscious effort to find out what the state of my partner is. Even though I was single, there was no room for marital infidelity in my life.

How much truth is there in the performance of "Stilt"? It is not known. It is certain that as he grew older, Wilt regretted more and more that he had not found a wife. Friends said he couldn't. Or he was simply afraid of marriage. "With all of you men who think having a thousand different women is pretty cool, I've found that having one woman is so much more satisfying."

Wilt Chamberlain Highlights in his Prime!

A bookworm with acting ambitions

Even when he was 50, there was an occasional story of some NBA team talking to Chamberlain about returning. It was written that with his physical conditions and still good form, he could give the team a quarter of an hour of solid play.

Wilt, who loved the glare of the headlights, seemed to be basking in these press rumors, but never took a similar offer. After his career ended, he became a bookworm. He also liked to write. He acted in movies, and the most famous one in which he starred was "Conan the Destroyer" in 1984. "Stilt" played the role of Bombaat and appeared alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Wilt Chamberlain died on October 12, 1999. The cause of death was heart disease. Only a few people knew his true face. Among them was certainly a great rival and friend, Bill Russell. When he received news of Wilt's death, he was devastated.

I feel unimaginably hurt. I have lost a dear and special friend and an important part of my life. Our relationship was very personal.

Even today, the pronouncement of the name Chamberlain brings to mind two images:on the one hand, an excellent basketball player, one of the best in history, a record holder and a millionaire. On the other hand, a very lonely man, replacing true love and stabilization with fleeting romances, still dreaming of a normal family.

Bibliography

1. Bill Simmons, The Big Book of Basketball , pub. SQN, Krakow 2018.
2. Ziemowit Ochapski, Wilt Chamberlain - millionaire and womanizer , Sports Legends (accessed on:27/04/2021).
3. Documentary, The night Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points
4. Sexual claim transformed perception of Wilt , ESPN.com (accessed:4/27/2021).
5. Michał Gąsiorowski, Basketball. Wilt Chamberlain - a star is not enough, Sport.pl (access:27/04/2021).