The Hershey Sport Arena is an 8,000-seat basin nestled in the thrilling heart of Pennsylvania. Until a few years before, the public was seething with the exploits of the heroes on the ice, but now Hockey has slipped into the background and those icy slabs have been replaced by a white parquet. It certainly won’t be the most unforgettable implant of Philadelphiabut if it were today on March 2, 1962 so yes. Because on this placid semi-spring evening exactly sixty years ago, history pulls over, opens the door and gets out right here. Yet the conditions, called to appeal, had shrugged for the whole afternoon. Wilt Chamberlainafter all, he is not the kind of person who seems to have time to make a distinction. He doesn’t give a damn about vivisecting his existence, leaning on two parallel lines what suits the basketball career and the deplorable behaviors that risk slowing it down. Equipped with a demigod physique and surreal technical skills, Wilt doesn’t need to discern anything. Irredeemable womanizer, he loves to stay up late, slightly raise his elbow if necessary and play around in the arcade.
Which is exactly what happens on the evening of March 1st. Our, a giant of 2 meters and 18 who goes around terrorizing half the NBA, he has gone badly. When she looks at the hands of her wristwatch, her eyes widen, but only for a handful of moments. A professional player shouldn’t eagerly poke around the vices of nightlife New Yorker before a match, but now the omelette is done. The big apple is too powerful a temptation for meats that quiver with weakness. Wilt hangs up on a bar landline and turns the wheel, dialing the number of a member of the staff of the Philadelphia Warriors, his team: “Yes, of course I’m coming. I missed a coincidence, see you tomorrow.” Tomorrow, in fact, the challenge against the New York Knicks is scheduled. The guy on the other side hooks up, furious. Chamberlain shrugs those monumental shoulders. “Patience – the self indulgence of him – so much I dominate even with one eye closed”.
From New York to Philadelphia it’s 157 km by train. He takes one at 6 in the morning, passing directly from the pubs to the station, without even knowing what shape a bed can have. When he arrives, he gulps down a quick lunch and then straight to the arcade: to rest a little is not mentioned. Now the coach begins to worry seriously, but he reassures him by pointing to some irrefutable signals: “I only did darts and billiards.” Late, once again. They have to come and rip him off the pinball machine, for the game is about to begin. Maybe he postpones that moment until the last thinkable moment because he knows everyone hates him. The companions, because the qualities of him excelled in him make them look like wet canaries. The staff, because he doesn’t lead a genuine sports life, but they can’t tell him anything anyway. The press was the main detractor: for the newspapers of the time, which dedicated to him to the maximum skimpy articles on the eighth page, Wilt was simply a beast that took advantage of a disconcerting physical prowess to dominate: “Look at him at the shots from the limit, not shit one “. Opponents hate him in equal measure. On those flamingo legs seems to have mounted an internal combustion engine. His arms seem to end in a different prefix. He tows imposing people with one hand. He outclasses anyone who tries to climb to the top of his gigantic shaft with disarming ease. He breaks baskets (seriously) and causes multiple fractures to the feet on which he falls.
The evening comes. It turns out that Phil Jordan, the long man of the Knicks, has suffered some kind of congestion. Or maybe that’s not true, there’s no proof. Maybe, they arise and gossips, he is only afraid of making up for a terrible fool. Instead of him, to defend the honor of New York, plays the former Olympian Darrall Imhoff: he will come out shredded, with the nightmare – which comes to visit him every night for the following months – of those interminable arms that dominate him. Wilt is in such a state of grace that all the shots from outside also enter: at the end of the first quarter he has already scored 23 points. His direct scorer, who came to his third foul out of desperation, railed at the referee: “At this point, make him do a hundred, so we all go home“. Prophecy on call. Request granted. Chamberlain continues to grind points with the cadence of a machine gun aimed at a grazing flock. On the threshold of the last quarter he has put 75. In the final, the speaker stops updating the result. The audience he sniffs the record. Other than skates and clubs on the ice. This scores 100 points. People palpitate for the miracle and he complies. The cent fixes him in a dunk. He could do two more, but he decides to stop there “because 100 is more beautiful than 102, come on “, he will say at the end. Someone improvises: scribbles that unreal figure on a sign and asks him to pose. He smiles pleased and not at all tired.
An alien enterprise, never again equaled in NBA history. And to think that, at the time, there was no three-point shot. The next morning the newspapers try to belittle the sporting miracle, reserving some forgettable pages and spitting out the guts: “Easy to explain. The worst free shooter in the world found a night of 28 out of 32”. Power irritates those who don’t have it. It is March 3, 1962: Wilt smiles, crumples the paper and centers the nearest basket.
