Wilt, 1962

by Gary M. Pomerantz

  Luckenbill passed back to Chamberlain. Another short shot by the Dipper, his third try for one hundred … in and out! The Hershey chorus: “Awwwwww!” Luckenbill grabbed this rebound, too.

  He passed to Ruklick.

  Fifty seconds to play.

  Now, with the ball in the hands of Joe Ruklick, the Kennedy liberal, the Knicks had their opportunity—their man to foul. Guerin knew it. Ruklick saw Guerin bearing down on him, like a football linebacker. He saw something else—the Dipper, down low, bumping away from Cleveland Buckner. Ruklick heard the Dipper call out, “Woo!” a short barking sound, a signal that he was in the open. Ruklick flipped the pass perfectly, high and into the middle. The Dipper caught it in front of the basket, only inches away, and rose high above the Knicks, high above the rim. Bill Campbell, energized, made his own loud barking sound, husky yet clear, “He made it! He made it! He made it! A Dipper Dunk!”

  CHAPTER 20

  Celebration

  ADAM BURST. Kids poured onto the court, a flash flood in Chocolate Town. Whooping it up, they bore down on Chamberlain, wanting only to touch him. The shutter on Paul Vathis’s Mamiya Flex 2¼-inch camera blinked and caught the Dipper in the act of one hundred: his feet returning to the floor, his right arm still vertical and fully extended, Zeus-like, as if releasing lightning bolts, the basketball snapping through the net, Cleveland Buckner’s left-handed swipe too small and too late to matter, an opponent and his team fading into nothingness. A transcendent moment: The congregation in the arena stood as one. Even the Knicks rose from their chairs next to Donovan, brought to their feet by shock, awe, disgust, and embarrassment. This hundredth point, Sam Stith knew, was the final indignity for his Knicks: ass-whupping time. Warriors players, who thought themselves no longer capable of being impressed by Chamberlain, rushed in to congratulate the Dipper, the only time in three record-breaking seasons that that had happened.

  Ruklick was not among them. He made a beeline to the scorer’s table. There, official scorer Dave Richter, wearing his red cap and whistle, stood and cheered lustily, same as Pollack and the others beside him. Ruklick waited, patiently. For three years in the NBA, no one had noticed Joe Ruklick. Even referee Woozie Smith once said to him at a bar, playfully, “Who are you, Ruklick? And why are you even wearing a uniform?” Yet now, in a remarkably clear-headed act of self-interest that others might have been too embarrassed to carry out, Ruklick made certain that he would not be overlooked or forgotten. The assist on Wilt Chamberlain’s ninety-ninth and one-hundredth points was his. He wanted it duly recorded; and it was. Bill Campbell couldn’t stand—his microphone was on a tabletop, down low. Neither could he whisper as Ted Husing had during that legendary Budge–von Cramm tennis match in the Thirties, the moment that had convinced Campbell to become a sportscaster. Instead, he shouted, to be heard over the crowd: “He made! He made it! He made it! A Dipper Dunk! He made it! The fans are all over the floor. They’ve stopped the game. People are running out on the court. One hundred points for Wilt Chamberlain! They’ve stopped the game. People are crowding, hounding him, banging him. The Warrior players are all over him. Fans are coming out of the stands. Forty-six seconds left. The most amazing scoring performance of all time! One hundred points for the Big Dipper!”

  Here was what the hundred-point Dipper looked like at this moment: utterly fatigued, out of breath, his upper body slightly bent, carrying the air not of a conqueror but a laborer. He had wanted this, worked hard for it, and now was surrounded by Hershey kids. Kids long have rushed to the center of thrilling sports moments. When Babe Ruth hit his five hundredth home run in Cleveland in 1929, a small Italian boy saw the baseball rolling in an alley behind League Park, outran the bigger kids, and got it. A policeman approached him minutes later and said, “Come with me.” Scared, naturally, the kid replied, “I aint’ done nuthin’. I aint’ done nuthin’.” The cop told him, “Babe Ruth wants to see you,” which terrified the boy. They brought him to the Yankee dugout whereupon the Babe asked for the ball as a keepsake and in return gave the trembling boy five dollars and a new ball.

  Among the first to reach the Dipper on the court, fast filling with fans, was fourteen-year-old Kerry Ryman. He had seen Wilt playing pool at the Community Club and driving his convertible past his house on Chocolate Avenue. Out on the floor, amid a growing mass of people, were Ryman’s rascals: Bugs, the Sandman, Spammer, and others. But to Ryman it was as if he and the Dipper stood alone. What an image they made: Rising to the level of Chamberlain’s thigh, the small-town boy stared up, up, up.

  Ryman stuck out his hand.

  The Dipper shook it.

  Ryman saw Willie Smith throw the hundred-point ball to Wilt. He saw Chamberlain bounce it once. Then, on impulse, Ryman did an adventurous, unplanned Huck Finn thing: He grabbed the ball … and ran with it. Across the court, he zig-zagged between fans, clutching the ball to his chest, feeling leather, the moment, the adrenal thrill of it all. The constables, Basti and Miller, saw it happen. They gave chase, part-time rent-a-cops, all in a night’s work. When Spammer noticed a man on the court move toward his friend Ryman, he casually stepped in front of that man, blocking his path. The Sandman saw Ryman with the ball, but figured he would simply take a shot at the basket … until Ryman did an about-face and charged up the steps. Go, Kerry! Small and fast, Kerry Ryman hit the steps running. He bounded up thirty cement steps two at a time with springing lunges. He had snuck into the Hershey Sports Arena so many times over the years that he knew its every passage. He reached the concourse, clutching the ball to his breast, fans pointing at him and shouting, “That kid’s got the ball!” He passed Earl Whitmore, the man in the arena because he bought a refrigerator. Whitmore worked at the chocolate factory with Ryman’s father. He said, “That’s Kerry Ryman!” And told a friend beside him, “They’ll never catch him.” The constables, a two-man posse in brown uniforms, lagged far behind. Ryman turned left and ran past a sign that read REFRESHMENTS CANDY SOUVENIRS and past restrooms he and his friends had used as hiding posts on many occasions. He burst out of the arena, ran along the catwalk, his every warm breath in the cold air puffing like smoke then dissipating. Kerry Ryman knew only one place to go—home. The Hershey amusement park spread out before him: cold and wind-blown in the darkness, desolate, not a person in sight. He ran past Kiddyland and down the hill. He passed the carousel, The Comet roller coaster, The Bug and The Whip, The Skooters bumper cars. The Ferris wheel loomed up ahead.

  Breaking outside along the catwalk at last, the constables knew the boy they were chasing. Kerry Ryman was one of the usual suspects. They saw him with the ball. They knew him. They followed him into the park. One of Ryman’s friends had run out of a different arena exit and now, deep into the park, yelled, laughing, “Run, Kerry, run!” The Sandman stepped out into the cold, too—he could not see them, but in the distance he heard the echoing laughter. Ryman ran three-quarters of a mile and more, the fear of God propelling him, climbing the far hill and running toward Chocolate Avenue. By the time the constables reached that same hill, they’d lost sight of him. Didn’t matter. Constable Gabe Basti could barely breathe; driving a delivery truck for Sears Roebuck full-time was hardly training for this. Besides, he knew where Ryman lived. He would talk to the chief constable. He would see what the chief wanted to do. If need be, Basti could go by the Ryman house in the morning, take the ball back, and bring the kid in.

  Back in the arena, Earl Whitmore’s friend said, “Wouldn’t it be something if they don’t have another ball to finish this game with?”

  Forty-six seconds remained. The Zink pleaded with fans to return to their seats; it took several minutes to clear the court. As a matter of course, a replacement basketball was kept at courtside near Harvey Pollack’s feet, in case the game ball met with calamity, mysteriously losing air or perhaps flying into the crowd where someone spilled a drink on it. (And also to adhere to a rule on page 216 of the 1961–62 NBA Guide: “A new or nearly new ball shall be kept at the scorer’s table.”
) A new ball was brought into play. Even now, with the Dipper at a hundred, Frank McGuire did not remove him from the lineup.

  The pace of the game did not change. Ruklick fouled Naulls, whose two free throws made the score 169–148, the most points ever scored in an NBA game. Butcher stole a pass, drove the length of the court for a basket with twelve seconds left, then immediately fouled Ruklick, grabbing him before he could get the ball to Chamberlain. Only eight seconds remained but Ruklick, as ever, had a plan. As the Dipper lined up for Ruklick’s free throws, he heard Ruklick say, in a low voice, “Wilt, I’m dumping.” Ruklick planned to intentionally miss the second free throw in hopes that Chamberlain might rebound and score once more for 102 points. But Willie Smith heard what Ruklick said. “What?” the referee said, the word sounding like an angry slash. As lead referee, he approached Ruklick. “Ruklick,” Smith said, “you’re trying to influence the outcome of a regularly scheduled game.” Smith threatened to forfeit the game, take the scoring record from Chamberlain, and see to it that Joe Ruklick never played another minute in the NBA. Never mind that no such rule or penalties existed. Ruklick felt intimidated.

  Chamberlain, thinking about posterity, pointed at the ball and said, “Ruh-da-lick, after the game you take this ball to the locker room.” Ruklick nodded. He missed both free throws. The Dipper couldn’t reach the second. The final seconds ticked away as Guerin took a wild hook shot that missed. The game ended, 169–150, and now adults joined their kids, flooding the court, surrounding Chamberlain, reverential, ten-deep, glad-handing him, slapping his back as he trudged wearily, head down, toward the locker room. Ruklick saw a basketball rolling on the court, away from the masses. He scooped it up, carried it into the locker room, and placed it in the Dipper’s gear bag. Ushers pried open the crowd enough to allow Chamberlain to make his slow way to the locker room, exhausted but finished for the night. Head bowed, he pressed through a crush of smiling Hershey boys, wearing their winter coats and loafers, their hair slicked back with gel. A few carried pens and game programs, no doubt hoping for autographs. A camera flashbulb popped. The boys slapped the Dipper on his back, touched his arms, grabbed for his hands, caught their fingers in the rubber bands at his wrists. It was pure hero worship, and the Dipper, though trudging, felt the satisfaction of a prophecy fulfilled. He attempted to shake each small hand within reach.

  Harvey Pollack typed a quick lead for The Philadelphia Inquirer and then typed “Pick-up X copy,” a reference to material he’d sent earlier. His son Ron dashed the new What if Wilt only scored ninety-eight points? The Dipper’s hundred checked out. Richter filled out the official scorer’s report in a cursive scrawl, listing players in alphabetical order, and scribbling over the names of those who didn’t play: Tom Gola, Frank Radovich, Phil Jordon, Whitey Martin, Sam Stith. Somehow, perhaps in the confusion that began with the Dipper’s hundredth point, the Knicks lost three points in the final calculation, the 169–150 final reported several times on the radio postgame show becoming permanently, 169–147. (Decades later, no one could explain this.) Pollack’s ditto machine was put to use, and soon stat sheets circulated through the locker rooms. Not that the Knicks wanted to see them. A game such as this, Stith believed, “makes your teammates enemies.” The less said about it the better. The Knicks dressed quietly, Imhoff answering questions from a Harrisburg newspaperman. He answered honestly, respectfully. “We tried everything we could. We tried fouling him because he usually misses the foul shots. But he was making them. We collapsed three men around him and tried to keep our hands in front of him. But he was making that fall-away jump shot or rattling them off the backboard. It seemed like everything he threw up went in but that mustn’t be right”—he had read the stat sheet—“because he missed almost thirty shots. He’s a great offensive machine, just a machine.” Imhoff estimated that Chamberlain had scored about forty points against him. “I didn’t play too long,” he said, adding, “Everybody had a shot at guarding him, but no one could do anything.”

  Pollack entered the buoyant Warriors locker room where he found the AP photographer, Paul Vathis, struggling to create a photo opportunity with the Dipper. A ball passed around the room was being signed by players, ball boys, Gotty. Pollack proposed an idea to Vathis: “How about if we write ‘100’ on a sheet of paper and have Wilt hold it?” Vathis nodded and asked, “You think Wilt will do it?” Pollack said, “Heff, give me a piece of paper.” The sportswriter Heffernan gave Pollack a sheet of copy paper on which he sometimes kept play-by-play notes. Pollack wrote on it with a pen, “100,” and handed the paper to the Dipper, who sat on a low-slung wooden bench, his knees in his chest. Behind him, his slacks, shirt, and overcoat hung from wall hooks. Chamberlain held up the paper with both hands and smiled sheepishly for Vathis. His face glistened with sweat, one bead clinging to the beard stubble on his chin. It was nearly 11:15 P.M. Vathis left to process his photos. Pollack rushed off to phone the wires. He would dictate his stories, compiling the paragraphs in his head, first to United Press International and then the Associated Press, conjuring different leads.

  From across the locker room, Meschery noted the crowd pressed around Chamberlain. It’s always this way, he thought. The postgame was the same as the game itself. The Dipper always got the ball … the Dipper always drew the light. Now Meschery watched Wilt and McGuire talk with reporters. The other Warriors dressed quietly in the corners.

  McGuire beamed. “It was a wonderful tribute to the team. Remember when he got the 78 [points] against Los Angeles? I told them that Wilt would score 100 some day, even if five men played him.” McGuire reveled in the magnitude of the accomplishment. “You know, I remember the thrill I got the first time a team of mine scored one hundred points. Now this. Why, it would take anyone alone in a gym about 20 minutes to score that many.” The coach’s eyes sparkled.

  Paul Arizin had entered the NBA in 1950. In the Hershey locker room, Arizin admitted, “I never thought I would ever see it happen when I broke into this league. But when Wilt came along I knew he’d do it some day. It’s a fantastic thing. I’m very happy for him.” The chatterbox Guy Rodgers said, “That’s the easiest way I know how to get an assist. Just give the ball to the Big Fella.” Teammates kidded Chamberlain: Since he’d been called for defensive goaltending twice against the Knicks, he’d really scored 104 points.

  The Dipper deferred to his teammates. “It wouldn’t even have been close to possible without them. They wanted me to get it as much as I did.” These were respectful, if predictable, comments, but Chamberlain felt a genuine gratitude for what they had done. They did not share a deep kinship with him. He knew they had submitted to his ambition in Hershey and he was grateful for it. To the reporters he said with pride, “I’d hate to try to break it myself.” Later, when Attles sidled up to him, the few reporters having left, the Dipper stared at the stat sheet, his eyes tight at the corners. “Big Fella, what’s the matter?” Attles asked. All season, Chamberlain had heard criticism that he took too many shots; he averaged forty shots per game. Now he replied, “I never thought that I would take sixty-three shots in a game.” “Yeah,” Attles replied, “but you made thirty-six of them.” Attles smiled and said, “Hey, we’ll take that any day of the week.”

  In Philadelphia, two reactions: Listening to WCAU at a neighbor’s house, Tom Gola, bad back, beer in hand, hung on Bill Campbell’s every word. Amazed, Gola only wished the game had been televised. It would have been good for the league.

  Listening on his bedroom radio, Cecil Mosenson heard Campbell shouting, “He made it! He made it! He made it!” and Mosenson thought, Yes, he did! Mosenson had gotten answers to his questions: Frank McGuire would allow it to happen and his players would willingly become Wilt’s accomplices. Beyond that there was no mystery. Mosenson always knew that Wilt Chamberlain would become the greatest scorer in basketball history.

  At The New York Herald-Tribune, where sports editor Stanley Woodward considered basketball unworthy of manly attention, no one knew that the
Knicks had even played. When sportswriter Jerry Izenberg walked to the row of telex machines—AP, UPI, Reuters among them—he tore off a page of the latest news. Earlier in the night, Izenberg had said he had no idea where the Knicks were. Now, reading Pollack’s UPI account, Izenberg announced to his colleagues, “Hey, look at this! I found the Knicks. They did play tonight against Philadelphia, and Chamberlain scored a hundred points.”

  Not one head turned.

  His radio equipment packed up, Bill Campbell bundled up and stepped out into the cold night air. What he saw outside the arena startled him: Wilt Chamberlain climbing into the driver’s seat of a new Cadillac with the Knicks’ Willie Naulls sitting beside him. Am I seeing things? Campbell thought. The guy scores a hundred points against the Knicks and they ride together back to New York? Campbell thought this just one more happy peculiarity of the NBA. It was deeper than that, of course, a racial solidarity that transcended team affiliation.

  In Raleigh, North Carolina, six Wake Forest University students left the Atlantic Coast Conference basketball tournament and crowded into a powder blue ’52 Chevy known to its owner as “The Blue ’52 That Runs Like New.” Scrunched in the front seat was Ernie Accorsi, a native of Hershey whose grandfather and father had worked in the chocolate factory and had known Mr. Hershey personally. (Accorsi himself would become a Philadelphia sportswriter and, in a distant day, general manager of the NFL’s New York Giants.) Now, on a rock and roll radio station, Accorsi heard the nightly news headlines: “The biggest news tonight comes out of Hershey, Pennsylvania.” Instinctively, Accorsi had a sinking feeling. Something bad has happened. “Shhhhhhh!” Accorsi pleaded with his buddies, but their banter continued. “Shuddup!” Accorsi shouted. They quieted. Accorsi’s worst fear bubbled up. The chocolate factory has blown up! Then he heard disconnected words floating through space: “Wilt Chamberlain” … “100 points” … “Hershey Sports Arena” … and he knew at once—this was even worse than he had feared. The greatest moment in the history of Hershey! “I can’t believe it,” Accorsi said, “and I missed it!” Accorsi had worked several years as an usher at the Hershey arena, proudly wearing his burgundy blazer. There he had watched hockey games. He had watched Wilt Chamberlain with the Globetrotters. He’d watched far too many ice shows. How could I miss this? From his fraternity house in Winston-Salem, Accorsi phoned home to Hershey. His mother answered. He didn’t even say hello, only, “Was Dad there?” His mother understood. Her pause was long enough to break it to her son gently. Ernie Accorsi knew: Dad was there. Finally, his mother said, “I’ll let you talk to him.”