Wilt, 1962 : the night of 100 points and the dawn of a new era / Gary M. Pomerantz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pomerantz, Gary M.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Basketball--United States--History.

Basketball.

United States.

History.

Chamberlain, Wilt, 1936-1999.

Chamberlain, Wilt.

Physical Description:

xx, 267 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Night of 100 points and the dawn of a new era

Place of Publication:

New York : Crown Publishers, [2005]

Summary:

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 courtisde.

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.

Contents:

The Rosters xii

The Stats xv

Part 1 Building Toward 100

1 The Dipper in Harlem 15

2 The Shooting Gallery 22

3 First Quarter 30

4 The Rise of the Dipper 41

5 Second Quarter 56

6 Gotty and the Zink 70

7 McGuire and His Warriors 78

8 Halftime 95

9 Imhoff, Guerin, and the Knicks 101

10 Third Quarter 114

11 Ryman of Chocolate Town 129

Part 2 The Fourth Quarter

12 Stirrings 141

13 Meschery 145

14 Guerin 148

15 Attles 151

16 Imhoff 155

17 The Dipper 158

18 Ruklick 162

19 One Hundred 165

20 Celebration 176

Part 3 Aftermath

21 The Legend Grows 193

22 The Ball 208.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-253) and index.

ISBN:

1400051606

OCLC:

57003687