MARCH 2, 1962 WILT CHAMBERLAIN
“Give it to Wilt! Give it to Wilt!”
The chant rang out through the small basketball arena in rural Hershey, Pennsylvania, a town better known for its chocolate than its sports. But on March 2, 1962, Hershey would take its place in the record books as the site of one of the greatest achievements in NBA history. It was there that Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia Warriors did what no player before or since has done.
At seven feet one inch tall and 275 pounds, Chamberlain was a big man among a league of big men and was the most dominant offensive player of the era. During the 1961–62 season, he was well on his way to averaging more than 50 points per game. In one five-week period, he had the two highest-scoring games on record. On December 8, he racked up a record-shattering 78-point total in a triple-overtime victory against Los Angeles. And then, on January 13, he posted 73 points in the 135–117 win over the Chicago Packers, the greatest total ever in regulation play.
Some believed those impressive numbers would remain untouched for many years to come. But others, including Philadelphia’s coach, Frank McGuire, often speculated that Chamberlain would reach the 100-point mark before his career ended. Reaching that goal wouldn’t be easy, however.
“Think just what it takes to score that much,” McGuire once pointed out. “Why, if you or I went to the gym alone it would take us almost half an hour to make enough for one hundred points.”
But what, exactly, was the most celebrated center in the NBA doing in Hershey, Pennsylvania? He and the Warriors were there to face the New York Knicks. Usually, the teams played in either Philadelphia or New York, but the NBA had seen a drop in its attendance recently. Hoping to boost its fan base beyond the populations of big cities, it had scheduled the match at the out-of-the-way site.
Unfortunately, the tactic didn’t work. The 8,000-seat arena was only half full at game time. Hardly any newspaper reporters or photographers showed up either. And there was only one radio announcer and no television crew.
Because of this, almost no media coverage of the match exists today. In fact, there is only one known recording of the original radio broadcast of the historic game. That recording was made by a college student who held his tape player up to his radio and then put the tape away after the game and forgot about it — for almost thirty years!
Of course, no one knew that Wilt “the Stilt” Chamberlain would make basketball history that night. Those who saw Wilt hours before the game might have wondered if he was even thinking about basketball at all. He was in a local penny arcade, playing pinball and taking aim at targets in the shooting gallery.
Interestingly, Chamberlain traces the start of his magical performance to that little arcade. He was playing the games for fun, and yet, deep down, he realized something else was happening.
“It seemed like whatever I touched, I was breaking record after record,” he recalled later. “I just knew I was on. I completely destroyed all existing shooting records there — an omen of things to come.”
A few hours later, Chamberlain had traded an air rifle for a basketball. He warmed up with the rest of the Warriors and then took his place in the center circle for the opening tip-off. He faced the Knicks’ backup center, Darrell Imhoff, who was starting in place of his ailing teammate, Phil Jordan. The ref blew his whistle and tossed the ball up in the air between the two men. The game was on.
Moments after the tip-off, Chamberlain got the ball and tossed it through the hoop for his first two points of the game. By the end of the first quarter, he had drained six more baskets in thirteen attempts for 14 points. He had also shot nine for nine from the free throw line, an unheard-of streak for him. His usual free throw average hovered closer to 50 percent, not 100!
Thanks to Chamberlain’s 23 points, as well as his 10 rebounds, the Warriors ended the first quarter ahead of the Knicks, 42–26. Wilt drove the offense in the second quarter, too, boosting his own game total to 41 and his team’s to 79 by halftime.
Forty-one points in twenty-four minutes? The people in the stands buzzed with excitement. Would they witness the Big Dipper matching — or even beating — his own scoring record? As the halftime break came to an end, a few more photographers showed up, having received word that something major was happening at Hershey Arena.
The score stood at Warriors 79, Knicks 68 when the game resumed. An 11-point lead is sizable, but not insurmountable. The Knicks knew by then that to win the game, they would have to do one thing: shut down Chamberlain.
They couldn’t. Double-, triple-, and even the occasional quadruple-team defenses against the Warriors’ center made no difference at all. Wilt was on fire, and the Warriors fed the flames, passing him the ball time and again and then standing back to watch him sink shots from all over the floor.
“There wasn’t an easier way in the world to get assists tonight,” said Warrior Guy Rodgers, who earned 20 in that stat column that night. “All I had to do was give the ball to the Dipper.”
“It was like holding up a tree that had been cut and was about to fall down,” Imhoff commented later about Chamberlain’s unrelenting offensive attack. “My sneakers were smoking.”
The Knicks tried another tactic that had worked against Wilt before — they fouled him, trusting that he would miss more free throws than he made and give them the chance to snare the rebounds. And on other nights, that strategy might have succeeded.
But that night, he drained free throw after free throw. By the end of the third quarter, he had scored an unbelievable 69 points, 21 of which had come from the foul line. The Warriors had a commanding lead of 125–109. But by that time, few people cared about the outcome of the game. They were too busy focusing on Chamberlain.
“Here’s the big fourth quarter,” broadcaster Bill Campbell announced at the start of the final twelve minutes of play, “and everybody is thinking, How many is Wilt gonna get?”
Chamberlain needed just four points to match his own regulation game record of 73, five to beat it. Swish! Swish! Swish! Three baskets and less than two minutes later, he had jumped from 69 points to 75!
The crowd was going wild, filling the arena with their whistles, cheers, and chants. Their frenzied excitement grew even greater when, with 7:51 left to play, Chamberlain lofted a jump shot from the foul line to make his 79th point of the game.
It had taken him forty-eight minutes of regulation play and fifteen minutes of overtime to reach 78 points just three months earlier. This night, it had taken him barely forty minutes to make 79!
By this time, the Knicks had thrown almost every trick in the book at Chamberlain in their desperate attempt to stop him from scoring. They knew the game was lost; now they were fighting for their dignity. They didn’t want to be forever known as the team that allowed one player to score one hundred points!
So, despite the fact that they were behind in the score, the Knicks started to run down the twenty-four-second shot clock whenever they had the ball. They hoped the game would end before Chamberlain could reach the triple-digit mark. When they didn’t have possession, they fouled every Warrior except Wilt, hoping to break his streak.
But nothing they did could stop him. Dave Zinkoff, the Warriors’ public address announcer, counted off Chamberlain’s mounting point total for the audience. “That’s eighty-one,” he bellowed, as Wilt sank yet another bucket. When he called out, “That’s eighty-nine!” there were still more than five minutes left to go!
One hundred points was within reach. But time was ticking down — and suddenly, Wilt stopped scoring. The Knicks’ fouling tactic seemed to be working.
Coach McGuire wasn’t about to sit by and let his star player be robbed of his chance at making history. So, with less than three minutes remaining, he sent in Joe Ruklick, Ted Luckenbill, and York Larese with one simple set of instructions: foul the Knicks. Get the ball. Then pass to Wilt.
It worked. Chamberlain sank a free throw, his 90th point, with 2:45 on the clock. He was fouled a moment later and racked up two more points on free throws. Then he tossed in a fadeaway that brought him to 94.
Six points to go! He looked poised to get two more when Rodgers fed him the ball near the hoop. Wilt bobbled the pass — but then recovered the ball and arced yet another fadeaway into the hoop!
His next two points were made in spectacular fashion. Larese had the ball. Chamberlain was down low. He cut to the hoop, and Larese hit him with a high pass.
Slam! With 1:19 on the clock, Chamberlain stuffed that ball down the hoop’s throat!
The fans were screaming themselves hoarse, and as the sole surviving radio recording reveals, announcer Bill Campbell was right there with them.
“He has ninety-eight with 1:01 left, he can make it easily,” the scratchy play-by-play rasps. “Rodgers in to Chamberlain, misses, Luckenbill rebound, pass to Chamberlain, misses again, Luckenbill rebound, back to Ruklick, in to Chamberlain… he made it! He made it! A Dipper dunk! He made it!… One hundred points for Wilt Chamberlain!”
Pandemonium broke out. There were still forty-six seconds left in the game, but for five minutes, all play stopped as the fans mobbed the court. Eventually, the game was finished, but the outcome was merely a sidebar to the night’s main event.
Wilt had scored 100 points. He had shot 36-for-63 from the floor and 28-for-32 from the foul line. He once said that he was as proud of that second stat as he was of his 100-point total.
Remarkably, there are very few photos commemorating Chamberlain’s historic feat. The most famous of these was snapped in the locker room after the game. Harvey Pollack, the Warriors’ public relations man, grabbed a piece of paper, wrote the number 100 on it, and thrust it into Chamberlain’s hands. Wilt held it up and turned with an exhausted smile to the camera.
After all, making history is hard work.
Wilt Chamberlain played in the NBA for fourteen seasons. He was named league MVP four times, led the league in assists once, led in scoring seven times, and led in rebounding eleven times. He won his first championship in 1967 as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers and his second in 1972 with the Los Angeles Lakers. His 100-point record still stands today.