I had a dream about Wilt Chamberlain last night. Wilton Norman Chamberlain, his full name came to me when I was still half-asleep. In my dream, I was hanging out with Wilt, hearing his stories as we sat at a bar at Kutsher’s Country Club where I first met him in the summer of 1970. I thought Wilt was so cool, always have, always will. Or should that be always wilt?
I liked his real name, just as I liked Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor more than Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Cassius Marcellus Clay more than Muhammad Ali.
Wilt was there to play, as he did every year, in the Maurice Stokes Game, a fund-raiser to help a former NBA foe. Stokes had played at Westinghouse High School in Pittsburgh and at St. Francis of Loretto (Pa.) near Altoona. He had struck his head falling to the floor in the last regular-season game, and was knocked unconscious. A few days later, in the opening playoff game against the Pistons in Detroit (in which he scored 12 points and had 15 rebounds), Stokes became ill on the flight home to Cincinnati. He had a seizure and a brain injury left him paralyzed for the rest of his life. Teammate Jack Twyman, also from Pittsburgh, became his guardian and created fund-raisers such as the game at Kutsher’s to raise money for Maurice’s care.
Stokes and Wilt Chamberlain were the biggest and most fearsome players in the league, and the sight of Stokes in a wheelchair – for the rest of his life – was a sobering scene.
Stokes was born in Rankin, Pennsylvania and his father worked in the nearby mill and his mother cleaned homes for other people. The family moved to Homewood when Maurice was eight years old. He did not start on the basketball team until his junior season but then led Westinghouse to consecutive City League championships in 1950 and 1951. Ed Fleming, who later played at Niagara University and in the NBA, was a teammate at Westinghouse.
So why was I dreaming about Wilt Chamberlain at 5 o’clock on a Wednesday morning, May 6, 2020? I woke up at 5:15 a.m., trying my best not to wake up my wife Kathie. I had asked her a couple of questions but got to answer. “Catch me doing something right today,” I advised her.
After thinking about Wilt, I was thinking about some of the great experiences I had while writing about basketball in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
I wasn’t in Hershey, Pennsylvania the night Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points against the New York Knicks. No member of the New York Press was present that night at the Hershey Arena. There’s no video of the feat.
I was in New Orleans the night “Pistol Pete” Maravich scored 68 points against the New York Knicks. I was in Anaheim, California the night Roger Brown of the Indiana Pacers scored an ABA playoff record 53 points against Bill Sharman’s LA Stars.
Wilt Chamberlain was my favorite athlete when I was a kid growing up --- oh so slowly – on Sunnyside Street in the Glenwood section of Pittsburgh. That’s just southeast of Greenfield and Squirrel Hill and before you hit Hays, West Homestead and Homestead.
I was a teenager, and my reading was limited to Sport magazine, The Police-Gazette, True and Classics Illustrated comics. Wilt was a wunderkind at the University of Kansas, a 7-1 center for the Jayhawks, and a definite standout on the school’s track and field team.
He could run the quarter-mile with the best of them, toss the discus and shot – he threw a 16-pound shot 47 feet in high school – glide over the hurdles, a true decathlon man. When he matured, he even considered boxing Muhammad Ali. He weighed 275 pounds when he was playing pro basketball and he was the best-proportioned big man I ever saw.
When George Kiseda was covering the Philadelphia Warriors for The Philadelphia Bulletin, he conducted a test with Wilt Chamberlain as a willing participant. He had Chamberlain run up and down steps and then had a doctor check his heart rate. Unusually tall men in those days often had heart problems. Not Wilt. He passed the test with flying colors. Kiseda, one of the best and most enterprising newspaper reporters of his time, knew he had someone special to write about.
I read magazine stories about Chamberlain and became fascinated with him. He was from Philadelphia, at the other end of our state, but we had little in common. He was black and I was white. He was a giant – called “Wilt the Stilt” and “Goliath” – and I was a midget called “Scoops” because of my newspaper interest. He hated both of those nicknames, by the way, and preferred “The Big Dipper.” That was given to him by boyhood friends because he had to dip his head or duck when he passed through most doorways. I remember him dipping to enter my room at Kutsher’s.
Over 100 schools sought his services while he was a junior in high school. He scored 42 points to lead the freshmen to a first-time-ever victory over the varsity at Kansas, and the first-year players drew more fans to their games at Allen Field House than the varsity did. In his first varsity game, Chamberlain scored 52 points and brought down 31 rebounds.
I was one of the smallest kids in the freshman class (1956-57) at Central Catholic High School and I had been at the front of the parade at St. Stephen’s Grade School when I made my First Communion and later my Confirmation. The smallest kids were in the front of the procession and the tallest kids, mostly the girls, brought up the rear.
Maybe I loved Wilt because I wanted to be tall like him and stand above the crowd. I read somewhere that short people have a great perspective on life because they are always looking up. Wilt boasted that he had a view, unlike most people.
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A Message from Jim O’Brien:
Dear Reader,
I want you to be among the first to know about my newest book, Looking Up Once Again, the second book in a trilogy of basketball memoirs, with a strong Pittsburgh connection.
This will be a limited edition. Because of the shut-down of so many book signing opportunities by the coronavirus pandemic, I am printing only 1,500 copies at RR Donnelley in Pittsburgh. I used to print about 15,000 copies of each of the books in my Pittsburgh Proud series.
I will be satisfied to recoup the cost of the printing and typesetting, and the photographs and artwork. At 78, I am happy to be able to continue to write my books, and I want to share my stories with readers like you. I hope you will help spread the word about my latest effort, as well as the series itself. My books cost $33.70, which includes shipping and handling, and I will be pleased to sign per your request. The book is once again 480 pages, with over 200 vintage photos, reproduced signatures, and behind-the-scenes stories culled from a long career of covering basketball on every level.
You can write in the name of the new book where it says “Other” on the order form of accompanying flyer. Thank you.
Best wishes,
Jim O’Brien
Holiday season specials:
Christmas and Hanukkah will soon be here. This one will also be a limited edition (1500 copies). Those who buy the second book in the trilogy will get first chance to buy the third book.
You can also get signed copies of the following for $20, plus $4 shipping charge. If you order more than one book, just add an additional $1 for each book over the $4 initial shipping charge.
Hometown Heroes - Glory Years- Golden Arms-Lambert
From A to Z: A Boxing Memoir – Fantasy Camp
CaLL 412-221-3580 to inquire about the possible availability of hard to get copies of Remember Roberto * Doing It Right * Whatever It Takes * Steelers Forever * Maz and the ’60 Bucs * Dare To Dream * We Had ‘Em All the Way – Bob Prince book * Penguin Profiles * Keep the Faith (Jerome Bettis on the cover)