Fifty years ago, a third year NBA center out of the University of Kansas playing in an obscure late season game against the New York Knicks set a single game record for points scored in a game that stands--and resonates--to this day:
Wilt's 100 points is the modern sports equivalent of the 1908 Tunguska Event--there's abundant proof that it happened, but there's no film, very little audio, and no prominent national media figures were there to document it. Even if someone beats the number someday, it'll be a completely different event--there will be endless video, real time commentary, and other documentation of it that will burn it into the sports world consciousness. . .but it will never have the mystique of that simple number from fifty years ago. Even after the age of Jordan, Wilt still holds a pile of NBA records (including several set in that game--the most amazing of which was probably the 28 free throws he sank in 32 attempts, which was rather unexpected from a career 51% free throw shooter). He probably would not have dominated the modern game as he did his own era, but it's hard to imagine that he wouldn't have been one of the greats regardless of who he had to compete with.
Well, there wasn't the rather silly
(#275699)3-point scoring shot to start with. I'm not sure the 3-point shot has been good for the game.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
I ran into him in person once
(#275701)this was in the mid 80s. I was flying back to Seattle and my Mom and Dad decided to take me and Mrs. HankP to the airport. My Dad always takes the most circuitous route possible, and decided to take the Lincoln Tunnel and then drive across midtown Manhattan to the Queens Midtown tunnel and then on to JFK airport. As we get to 5th Avenue the light turns red, then stays red and a policeman starts pulling a barrier across the street. After about 5 minutes, the Gay Pride parade starts marching down 5th Ave. Mrs. HankP and I got to hear my parents comments on the whole deal for about half an hour ("Those are some tall women on that float!" "That poor man, his pants are ripped in the back" "Are those men dressed up as mermaids? Wouldn't they be mermen?" etc. etc.) until we can continue to the airport. When we get there, we get on line to check luggage. I'm talking to my Mom, and I see her looking over my shoulder and she says "My goodness, that black man over there is very tall!" I turned around and Wilt Chamberlain was walking through a door about 10 feet behind me. As he entered, everyone started yelling "Hey, Wilt!" and as he walked past the line everyone held their hand up so he could high five us all as he walked past.
I blame it all on the Internet
Just Astonishing! Wilt is FP, Holding Up a Number...Slut-hood...
(#275895)...personified...no man has been more reviled that Mr. Chamberland and his sex habits:
In 1991, Chamberlain wrote his second autobiography, A View from Above. There, the lifelong bachelor claimed he had sex with 20,000 women. For this to be true, he would have had to have had sex with 1.37 women per day from the age of 15 up until the year of the autobiography's publishing, a rate of over nine women a week. He quickly became a target for jokes and jibes,
And we are arguing about the sex habits of a 3rd year law student...who probably doesn't have the time or energy to do anything...
Misogyny is all over that Diary....I maybe would further note that:
Cherry (his friend and biographer) believes that Chamberlain's extreme sex drive was fueled by the female rejection he had experienced as a teenager, causing him to over-compensate.[5] Although his life was highly promiscuous, his lifelong friend and on-and-off girlfriend, Lynda Huey, eleven years his junior, said: "He had an inability of combining friendship and sexuality."[21
Just saying that this disconnect on the front page, there for a while is what made me....wince how differently men are treated by women, the vast power inequality that still exists.
Obviously.
We praise and vererate Wilt Chamberland and damn a young lady trying to make a positive difference in her world. Whether you agree with Ms. Sandra Fluke or not, the blindness & Hypocrisy is...
Just Astonishing.
Best Wishes, Traveller
"We praise and...."
(#275914)As for the more than just overly exaggerated 20,000 claim, it seems like a desperate exaggeration of an already high number.
"I’m to believe that North Korea is so dangerously unhinged that they would attack without warning – yet so meek and easily cowed that they will sit quietly and not retaliate when we start bombing them."
Major Kong
In Fairness. . .
(#275915). . .he was mostly mocked for the whole "20,000 women" claim--and the whole thing became a lot less funny not long after when Magic Johnson went public about his HIV situation, which apparently resulted from similar levels of activity.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
At some Deep & Fundamental Level...Childless and no Marriages
(#275917)...with a bad heart and an early death...Wilt is a sad figure....he himself regretted how he spent his life and said so just before he died.
So, yes, I understand...
Chamberlain had a history of heart trouble. In 1992, he was hospitalized for three days following an irregular heartbeat, and in 1999, his condition deteriorated rapidly. During this time, he lost 50 pounds.[23] After undergoing dental surgery in the week before his death, he was in great pain and seemed unable to recover from the stress. On October 12, 1999, Chamberlain died in Bel-Air, California at the age of 63.[24] He was cremated.[25] His agent Sy Goldberg stated Chamberlain died of congestive heart failure, and for about a month, doctors had been draining his legs of fluid that had accumulated because of the heart problem.
However, as a final discordant note...I have some...very distant passing with BB players....I'm not sure I like them much...though Wilt may have been okay.
Best Wishes, Traveller
The Usain Bolt of his time
(#275970)Equally amazing was the season where he averaged 50.4 a game.
Government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.