The greatest sports achievement ever? Wilt scored 100 points in a game 60 year ago

Wilt Chamberlain

… will probably never be broken
When contemporary basketball fans think of the greatest basketball player in history, they invariably talk about Michael Jordan or Lebron James. 
Perhaps Kobe Bryant enters the mix. 
However, the awesome big men of yesteryear have records that may not be broken. Kareen Abdul-Jabbar scored 38,387 points in his career, yet fans today do not mention him as one of the greatest. 
The record that will likely never be surpassed occurred 60 years ago this month in Hershey, Pa. On that night, Wilt Chamberlain, the 7-2 inch center of the Philadelphia Warriors, scored 100 points in a game against the New York Knicks.
100 points?
Only one person has ever come close to that since, and he missed by 19 points. 
That was Kobe Bryant.
The current players on the Philadelphia 76ers recalled that night in a game earlier this week,
Chamberlain, a product of Overbrook High School [in Philadelphia], was later traded by the Warriors, who had moved to San Francisco in 1962, to the Sixers on Jan. 15, 1965. It’s quite a coincidence that a Philadelphia team is playing the Knicks, when the Sixers (37-23) entertained New York (25-36) on Wednesday, the night of the anniversary.
Arguably the NBA’s greatest player, Chamberlain led the Sixers to the 1967 NBA title. The late Hall of Famer was a four-time MVP, seven-time scoring champion, 10-time All-NBA selection, 13-time All-Star, 11-time rebounding champion, and two-time All-Defensive selection.
Yet, his most memorable accomplishment came 60 years ago  in a game played before 4,124 people in Hershey. Chamberlain made 36-of-63 field goals and 28-of-32 foul shots. He scored 31 points in the fourth quarter and 59 points in the second half.
Keith Pompey, “60 years later, Chamberlain’s 100-point game still leaving coaches and players awestruck,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 1, 2022
In addition to that performance, Wilt the Stilt scored 78 points in a game, 73 points twice, and 72 points once. 
So, when people are talking about the greatest players ever, they should think about Wilt the Stilt and Kareem as being better than either Jordan or James. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Remembering the toughest loss I ever experienced in approximately a quarter-century of coaching football. George Pasierb was a great coaching adversary.

Image
R.I.P. George Pasierb, 1946-2020 Shade-Central City High School football coach Photo: Tribune-Democrat No high school football fan could ask for anything better than this. On a beautiful sunny, warm afternoon on Saturday, October 30, 1982, in Nanty Glory, Pa., the battle featured a clash of two undefeated titans of the Appalachian Conference.  One was the preseason unanimous favorite to win the title, the other a veritable surprise that season, one that had built an 8-0 record entering that game.  This battle lived up to the pre-game hype, ending in a one-point decision that was not certain until the final play of the game.  I thought of this because the coach of the powerful Shade-Central City High School Panthers, George Pasierb, passed away earlier this week. He coached the Panthers for 20 years, but his best team was arguably that 1982 team that battled the Blacklick Valley Vikings on that Saturday afternoon before more than 3,000 ebullient fans.  And, the one-po...
Read more

Why did Tennessee-Chattanooga hire trainer Tim Bream despite his role in the alcohol-induced death of Tim Piazza at a Penn State frat?

Image
… was a live-in advisor at the fraternity On paper, Tim Bream has an impressive resume. Actually, very impressive — up to a point. That seems to be when Bream’s life appears to careen out of control. Bream, who resigned as Penn State trainer in Feb.,  was a graduate of Penn State with a bachelor’s degree in physical education, specializing in athletic training. He then attended West Virginia as a grad assistant trainer, where he received a master’s degree in Physical Education with an emphasis on Sports Science. All of this information is from his bio on the Penn State athletic site. He then worked his way up the ladder impressively, working at Syracuse, Vanderbilt, and finally at the University of Richmond, where he was the Director of Sports Medicine and Head Athletic Trainer. Then he received his big break, being name as Assistant Athletic Trainer for the Chicago Bears in 1993, and four years later, Head Athletic Trainer. He was with the Bears for 19 years when inexplicably,...
Read more

Why did Mike Tomlin start hiring black coaches after 15 years?

Image
Brian Flores … hiring Flores probably rankled Goodell To place this into context, understand that the only reason that the Steelers hired Mike Tomlin 15 years ago is because he was black.  Why? He had never even been a coordinator anywhere, never in the NFL. The only reason that he was interviewed was because of the “Rooney Rule.” That rule is one named after the late Dan Rooney who led the effort to force every NFL team to interview at least one black coach when it had head coaching openings.  The Steelers had focused their coaching search after Bill Cowher left on Ron Rivera, then a defensive coordinator for the Chicago Bears. Their interview with Tomlin was a peremptory one, something to satisfy the smell test.  After all, why interview a guy who was just a defensive coach? Coordinators are the people who are hired for the big gig.  Tomlin, though, is a great talker, and he wooed Dan Rooney so much that he was hired for the position.  Which begs the q...
Read more