Wilt, 1962: The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era

by Gary M. Pomerantz

Includes 30 minutes of genuine radio broadcast from the 4th quarter of Wilt Chamberlin's 1962, 100-point game!

On the night of March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, right up the street from the chocolate factory, Wilt Chamberlain, a young and striking athlete celebrated as the Big Dipper, scored one hundred points in a game against the New York Knickerbockers.

As historic and revolutionary as the achievement was, it remains shrouded in myth. The game was not televised; no New York sportswriters showed up; and a fourteen-year-old local boy ran onto the court when Chamberlain scored his hundredth point, shook his hand, and then ran off with the basketball. In telling the story of this remarkable night, author Gary M. Pomerantz brings to life a lost world of American sports.

In 1962, the National Basketball Association, stepchild to the college game, was searching for its identity. Its teams were mostly white, the number of black players limited by an unspoken quota. Games were played in drafty, half-filled arenas, and the players traveled on buses and trains, telling tall tales, playing cards, and sometimes reading Joyce. Into this scene stepped the unprecedented Wilt Chamberlain: strong and quick-witted, voluble and enigmatic, a seven-footer who played with a colossal will and a dancer’s grace. That strength, will, grace, and mystery were never more in focus than on March 2, 1962. Pomerantz tracked down Knicks and Philadelphia Warriors, fans, journalists, team officials, other NBA stars of the era, and basketball historians, conducting more than 250 interviews in all, to recreate in painstaking detail the game that announced the Dipper’s greatness. He brings us to Hershey, Pennsylvania, a sweet-seeming model of the gentle, homogeneous small-town America that was fast becoming anachronistic. We see the fans and players, alternately fascinated and confused by Wilt, drawn anxiously into the spectacle. Pomerantz portrays the other legendary figures in this story: the Warriors’ elegant coach Frank McGuire; the beloved, if rumpled, team owner Eddie Gottlieb; and the irreverent p.a. announcer Dave “the Zink” Zinkoff, who handed out free salamis courtside.

At the heart of the book is the self-made Chamberlain, a romantic cosmopolitan who owned a nightclub in Harlem and shrugged off segregation with a bebop cool but harbored every slight deep in his psyche. March 2, 1962, presented the awesome sight of Wilt Chamberlain imposing himself on a world that would diminish him. Wilt, 1962 is not only the dramatic story of a singular basketball game but a meditation on small towns, midcentury America, and one of the most intriguing figures in the pantheon of sports heroes.

Genres: Sports, Basketball, Nonfiction, History, Biography, Audiobook, African American

Audio CD

First published April 26, 2005

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

"What [Wilt] Chamberlain was doing to the 'old game' was much like what Elvis Presley had done to traditional American popular music. He didn't destroy it; he simply placed it in a new context. The old pro game was more regimented and patterned, much like the lives of the men who played it. The 'new game' was faster, more spontaneous and inventive. It was played increasingly above the rim and with a more luminous athleticism. Chamberlain scored more points in 1961-1962 than the entire Philadelphia Warriors team, a division winner, scored during the 1947-1948 season." -- on pages 122-123

On the chilly winter evening of 2 March 1962, an athletic record was set during an otherwise unremarkable game between the Philadelphia Warriors and the New York Knicks at the cavernous Sports Arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania. That unusual small town locale - also informally known as 'Chocolatetown, USA,' as it is the home to the Hershey Chocolate production plant - was intentional, as the National Basketball Association - then only sixteen years into its existence, and still trailing in fan popularity to many longer-established college teams - would try to drum up interest at different venues within the print media / radio / TV coverage areas for the specific teams. Warriors' center Wilt Chamberlain - then arguably at the height of his celebrated sporting prowess during his storied fifteen-season NBA career - scored 100 points (!) during the match-up, setting a single-game scoring record which still stands to this very day. (The next closest is Kobe Bryant's 81 points back in 2006, followed by . . . Wilt Chamberlain again with 78 points in 1961.) Author Pomerantz deftly covers that day sixty-three years ago with his very thorough and engaging Wilt, 1962, which covers not just Chamberlain but many other of folks involved - players, coaches, and team owners; the handful of print and/or radio journalists who were present, and the lucky local fans who were in attendance (only about 4,000 were actually in the seats, and that may be an inflated number). It is interesting in that there are very few photographs from that evening, and only partial excerpts saved of the aired radio broadcast - in a modern-day era where it seems like EVERYTHING is documented - so a book like this one truly brings those few hours to life. Admittedly, the location is only a 45-minute drive from my birthplace, so I loved the references and mentions of the local culture and sites, such as the referee Willie 'Woozie' Smith (so nicknamed because he liked to throw back a few drinks with the teams after a game) being a resident from my hometown. This is not simply a 'sports book' as it is an informative, sometimes thought-provoking and occasionally humorous look at Americana.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gimme a well-researched book about an interesting event/person and I’ll be happy. The author conducted 250 interviews for this book and viewed hundreds of microfilmed newspaper pages. He did the research and turned it into a fascinating read.

[Lance · Rating 4 out of 5]

While many know about Wilt Chamberlain being the only basketball player to score 100 points in a game, not many know all the details about that game, as it was played in Hershey, Pennsylvania before a half-filled minor league hockey arena. The Knicks, the team on which Chamberlain scored all those points, were a mediocre team at the time. Professional basketball was losing the few fans it had to football and basketball, with the biggest complaint that it was too boring and too black. This book is an excellent account of not only that game, in which the listener will learn much about both teams, but also of the transformation of basketball that this accomplishment launched as the powers that be in professional basketball realized how much more popular the game would become with more scoring. The narration is very good and the audio version has a bonus of the actual broadcast of the fourth quarter, which was a treat all by itself. A very good audio book on a historic sports moment.

[Phil Overeem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe the best book out there on Chamberlain

Pomerantz's indefatigable research places one of sport's most titanic individual accomplishments in an enlightening array of contexts, and introduces to figures in the shadows who played key roles during that epic night. Along the way, he also quietly argues that Chamberlain was a somewhat tragic figure.

[Rev Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story of one of the all time greats.

[Kurt Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

An amazing amount of research must have gone into this book. Kudos to the author for that. Hundreds of hours to document an amazing, ground-breaking player. Kudos for Chamberlain. There is so much more to the man than his 100-point game, and so much more than his basketball.

And, therein lies a problem with the book. The title is an attention grab (seemingly for a money grab). Throughout the book, it seems that while Wilt was proud of his 100 point game, he never made it the focus, the centerpoint, or the title of his career or life. It was only one of his milestones, but certainly only one of many. Based upon what I read here, I think Wilt would not have liked the title.

The biggest problem I have with the book is the narrative and time progression. It jumps all over the place and from person and subject and backstory and tangent. Names, people, places, are tossed about encyclopedically like we all know who they are, often times without being introduced. Or finding out who they are several paragraphs or pages later. With the jumbled timeline, as someone not in 'the game' or with knowledge of the 1960s cultural icons - except the major players. (would a impressionable 13 year old even know who Farrah Faucet was? or even Nancy Reagan, or Frank Sinatra, Redd Foxx? I doubt it) This runs as a string of meaningless name-dropping because we don't know who they are. On the flipside, 'nobodies' that attended the game are given spotlights (somebody buys a fridge and wins a ticket. (Yawn) Evo attended the 100 point game, and also saw a boring Yankees World Series game; I was expecting him to show up in the Epilogue saying "Basketball is great, baseball sucks"). We find out who wins the raffle ticket at halftime - amazingly crazy in-depth research, but, ahem is it really pertinent to Wilt, Basketball or any of this dawning New Era? It sure pads the page count.

It was the jumping of the timeline for and back, here and there that really drove me nuts... up until the last quarter, anyways. This disjointed timeline and hardly fathomable list of name-dropping is what knocks this from a 4 star book to a 2.5 star book. In short, as a book, I found it to be terrible writing and VERY hard to follow, with nobody to blame but the author.

The other part of the title, "Dawn of a new era"... it is a little unclear what that new era is: is it blacks in the NBA, or how the game was played, some combination of the two, or something else. I'm still not really clear on that. While blacks were in the NBA, did Wilt shatter that glass ceiling that was already cracked, or was he just one of the many? Or, was it just part of the generation of the 1960s Civil Rights movement and he just happened to live in that era (like Roger Maris and Cassius Clay)? For this, I knock off another 1/2 star.

Somewhere I read that this book would show him as a leader in the black community erasing segregation and racism. While he quietly supported the movement (eg. attending I Have a Dream speech), or perhaps lending his name, he was not a forerunner like King or Malcolm X. This may be my misinterpretation of what I read or my expectations. Regardless, what is presented is rather scattered and unclear as to his involvement and impact. It could have been so much more.

From what I read in this book, I thought Wilt was an amazing athlete during an wild and turbulent time in an organization (NBA) on the cusp of make or break. Wilt certainly contributed to the success of the NBA, and perhaps foreshadowed the dawn of a new era. Not covered by TV, barely covered in radio and not recorded by teams or networks, and only a handful of photos and 2 reporters. Given the reactions to the headlines in the papers, even in NYC (the opponent team) and his hometown Philadelphia, it seems this 100 point game was almost an afterthought. not a jaw-drop or a head-turner. It wasn't until the success of the NBA, 25 years later (not even 20 yrs later), that this game meant to be much. In short, this might have been a straw on the camel's back, but it wasn't (at the time) a tsunami that swept clean the court for new play - either playing style or for blacks.

Wilt is amazing. The research is amazing. The writing of the account flops. 2/5 stars. Recommended only for serious basketball fans, and crazy, fanatical sports fans.

[Paulo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book provides the context for the only game in NBA history in which a player scored 100 points: Philadelphia Warriors's player Wilt Chamberalin in 1962. The game was not televised and the print media coverage was limited; the author's work was to conduct more than 250 extense interviews to all the posible protagonists. Pomerantz did a lot of research through that interviews and reading newpapers of that time, and all this work is adequately reflected in the book since it provides many details and the story is very complete.

So, the background of the game is nicely explained. It was an era in which NBA went from being a white men's enclave to a black men's league. Attendances grew and the exposure was increasing; Wilt was one of the first players widely known in a league increasingly full of freakishly athletic players. The 100 points game is not enough to fill a book, but starting from that history and complementing with the situation of the league at that time gets a very interesting book.

[victor harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun read of a bygone era in the NBA and how Wilt Chamberlain would help alter the destiny of the league. His 100 point feat was actually a low profile event at the time as the NBA was still almost a backwater sport. Very little coverage of the game itself by major media, which in a way helps make the author's narrative all the more intriguing. The game itself was held in Hershey, Pa. which itself did not have a franchise but often hosted games for Wilt's team, the old Philadelphia Warriors. They played the lowly Knicks in the game in question, who used every legal tactic available to try and thwart Chamberlain.
Excellent biographical snapshots of individual players and coaches. Good game coverage, and intelligent handling of the racial issues against the broader landscape of a society that grappled with those issues.

[kyla hoggard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had heard his name, and picked up on the "style" of rubber bands on the wrist. However, I had no real concept of the magnitude and majest of Wilt Chamberlain. What an incredible young man! Glad to have learned so much about the NBA. I loved how Wilt was always his own person. For that, the book is worth reading.

[Joshua Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book dives into the infamous night when Wilt scored 100 points. However that night no media decided to go to that game so all there is to show for it are pictures and people’s word for it. The book also goes into debt about his dominance in high school, at The University of Kansas and his team in Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

[Stephen Dittmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable read about a seminal sporting event about which I knew few details. The book's structure - alternating between Wilt's life (and death) and the chronology of the game - reminded me of Jane Leavy's biography of Sandy Koufax. Appreciate the author weaving in supporting narratives about the ball, media coverage, Hershey, Pa., and more.

[Alex Franzese · Rating 3 out of 5]

He went into too much detail about each and every person that was involved in the game from the announcer to the coach to the bench players on each team. Either way there were some very interesting facts and anecdotes about each person, but too much detail.

[Ralph · Rating 2 out of 5]

Guess I just don’t like sports books. Way too much hype and superfluous detail for my liking.

[John Schember · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun read

[Justyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good one! 4 stars.

[Christopher Heaney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrific account of Wilt Chamberlain's 100 point game. It was a different NBA back in 2982 & Pomerantz paints w/ words a vivid picture of that era.

[Lance · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Lucas Esandi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gary put in the work to write this book. That night still overshadows all scorers performances in the league and it's interesting to know more about it and also about Wilt Chamberlain, he was larger than life and one of the most extraordinary athletes of all sports all time. It was a blast reading this book. Highly recommended it. Go get it basketball junkies.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A reasonably good reconstruction of Chamberlain's famous game, with plenty of contextual details about other actors involved in this drama (Frank McGuire, Eddie Donovan, Al Attles, Darrall Imhoff, Richie Guerin, Tom Gola (who heard it on the radio), Paul Arizin, etc.). Pomerantz does his best to discuss what a pivotal moment in basketball history this game was, yet can't escape the fact that there's no surviving videotape; that the game took place in Hershey, PA in front of a tiny crowd; that basketball was as marginal a sport in those days as pro wrestling; and that basketball still doesn't matter that much, at least relative to pro football and baseball. Some aspects of the story are fascinating and well-told--Chamberlain's depressing last days, Kerry Ryman's rather pathetic attempt to sell the game ball (and the misfortune it brings him)--but others feel rushed or unnecessary (wasn't there more to say about McGuire? or Gola as a representative of the old, slow white athlete? or Russian émegré Tom Meschery's poetry? or Joe Ruklick's late-life social activism? and so on). Its faults are of little consequence, though: this is a breezy read, something that can be finished in a few hours and forgotten just as quickly.

[Andrea Enzo Romano · Rating 3 out of 5]

alla fine troppi capitoli non incentrati su Wilt, ma neanche sulla nuova era......si tratteggiano tante cose, gli avversari di quella sera (Naulls, Imhoff, Guerin), i compagni (Arizin, Rodgers, Meschery), la cittadina di Hershey con le sue fabbriche di cioccolato, lo speaker (Zinkoff), il proprietario (Gottlieb), ma nella realtà il cambio epocale che porta con se il 2-3-1962 non viene così ben identificato e anche lo stesso Chamberlain sembra uscire più come un fenomeno da baraccone che come un reale perno nel cambio del gioco, da quello stanziale a quello verticale. Wilt e Bill Russell hanno, in modi diversi, sradicato la natura di un gioco che, prima di loro, era giocato piedi a terra, ma di questo vi è poca traccia, con pochissimi riferimenti al mitico centro dei Celtics. in conclusione un libro carino, con anche aneddoti simpatici, ma che una vera biografia non è e che, forse, non mantiene appieno le premesse del titolo. Da rimarcare come molte parti di quest'opera siano inserite nella narrazione proposta da Federico Buffa per Sky Sport, nella sua biografia in 5 puntate su Chamberlain

[Garrett Burnett · Rating 3 out of 5]

To some degree Wilt, 1962 is a biography of Wilt Chamberlain that centers on his famous 100-point game. Pomerantz also provides interesting details about the infancy and adolescence of professional basketball, race relations in the 1950s and 60s, the town of Hershey Pennsylvania (site of the Big Game), and Wilt's teammates and competitors.

I didn't come away feeling like I knew Wilt, though Pomerantz indicates throughout (especially via quotes from the Dipper's teammates), Wilt was a complicated guy—guarded and not accessible.

I recommend Wilt, 1962 to anyone with an interest in basketball's history or who would like to see an interesting take on black/white interactions of the era (especially the effects of Chamberlain's celebrity on race relations).

Overall it is a very good book, especially considering its restricted scope (a book about one player in one basketball game...).

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this style of writing as Pomerantz tells the story of Wilt's big night by exploring all the people surrounding that unexpected evening in Hershey, from the kids who sneaked into front-row seats, to the photographer on a night off who raced to his car at the end of the third quarter to grab his camera.

Nothing much was expected out of this game at the time...the NBA was struggling to exist and this was a late-season game featuring two teams with no shot at winning their division. Only a couple sports writers bothered to be on press row for this one. Pomerantz interviewed a ton of people who were there that night and pieced together a well-told story.

I bought this book while visiting the chocolate museum in Hershey...forget the chocolate, I wanted to see something on Wilt while I was visiting. At the time I purchased the book, the 76ers were giving out 2x2-inch pieces of the floor from that night...talk about sweet!

[Tom Gase · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I may have been a little too harsh on this book the first time I read it, but I re-read it for the 50th anniversary of Wilt's 100-point night and I liked it a lot better. Yes, the book steers completely too much away from the game at the start. There seems to be only two sentences about the first half of the game in the book during the first 100 pages. It was talking about the people involved in the game at that point and their past history, but don't go TOO far away from the book's main point.
The second half of the book, however, is much better. The book talks not only about the game, but what the players are thinking during those moments. Maybe you need the boring build-up to make the second half work? I don't know. Anyway I would recommend this book for fans of Chamberlain or fans of the NBA. Much better read the second time. I believe I first read this in early 2007.

[Clay Yearsley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read a couple other sports books with the same general style, "Game 6" about the 1975 World Series and "Three Nights in August" about a regular season series between the Cards and Astros. What those books do that this one doesn't (aside from hold my interest) is tell me something about the GAME. Sure, all of them want to put things in perspective and inform the reader about the world in which they are set. This book just goes from one person to the next, giving us a mini-biography on them. The problem is, they aren't interesting. Maybe it's because the event happened further in the past. Maybe it's because I'm less of an NBA fan than a baseball fan. Either way, I don't know who these people are and I find their stories boring. That bogs this book down and ultimately makes it close to unreadable.

[Christopher Litsinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book sort of rambles around several themes: (1)Wilt Chamberlain and his life; (2)the racial integration of the NBA; (3)the change from a slower, feet on the ground game to the jumping game we watch today, largely credited to the first black players, including Wilt; (4) the actual 100 point game in Hershey; (5)the lives of the people who participated in the game including players, owners, coaches; (6) the town of Hershey; (7)I feel like I'm probably missing a few more here.
At first this rambling approach to the story really bothered me, but as I got into the book it was more enjoyable- after all, any one of those topics on its own has the potential to make a good book.
3.5 stars, I rounded up.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

The narrow focus of the book on this one game in Hershey prevents it from being truly memorable. That plus the fact the game was largely overlooked by contemporary media with no recorded game tapes (radio or TV) ever made, make for sparse source material. The game itself and the fouling at the end in particular are well done, but there is really only material for a decent magazine-size article here, not a book.

I didn't learn a whole lot because there isn't much to learn about the game except from the box score and some reminiscing, so give this one a pass unless you feeling tremendously nostalgic for Wilt.

[Garth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun book for even the nominal Wilt Chamberlain fan. If you happen to be a big fan of The Dipper, this is a must-read. The additional drama involving the provenance of the ball used in the game is great fun. Wilt really did revolutionize basketball, and this book offers an entertaining, in-the-trenches perspective while serving up lots of tidbits about the supporting cast in the game including Darryl Imhoff, Al Attles, Guy Rodgers, Richie Guerin, Paul Arizin, Tom Gola... six or seven Hall of Famers between the two teams' rosters.

[Fausto Betances · Rating 5 out of 5]

As little as I like to read about single events stretched into entire books, which was the case with this book, I couldn't resist the subject. I'm happy to say i was not disappointed. The author delivered a master piece rendition of one of the most mystical moments in sports history. Chamberlain 100 points.
The book follows the life of many individuals involved, if briefly, culminating on the momentous night great achievement for the big deeper. Very entertaining book and great historical account.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story jumps around quite a bit, with the overarching narrative being a detailed description of the game in which Wilt scored 100 points. But the author gives a vivid account of Wilt's personality and character. He tries to make the game stand as metaphor for the emergence of the black athlete (and black culture) in the USA, but at the same time he repeatedly alludes to the fact that the 100-point game drew little attention when it happened.

[Steven Tarnok · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was very disappointed with this book. the book did not capture the life of the great basketball player, Wilt Chamberlain, but about his accomplishment of his record of scoring 100 points in a single basketball game, individually. I do give the book credit, for capturing the details of his record, though i feel as if stretching one concept on to 250 pages, it will bore the reader as it bored me. i do not recommend the book Wilt, 1962.