Remembering a legend

Friday, February 15, 2008

A lot of great players have come through the University of Kansas in their college basketball careers. If you ask students to remember some of the famous KU basketball players, you will get a lot of different responses. Some would mention Paul Pierce. Others might recall Julian Wright. Other people might reply with Danny Manning or Raef LaFrentz. But another name might come up, from a generation before those other Jayhawk greats: Wilt Chamberlain.

Most fans recognize the players who are still active in the NBA, and sometimes Chamberlain gets looked over. That should not be the case. Why do so many people forget about Chamberlain?

Courtesy of Spencer Research Library

Wilt Chamberlain stretches far above Phog Allen, just as he stretched above his competition during his career with the Jayhawks.

“He wasn’t really my generation,” said Ted Klein, St. Louis freshman. Chamberlain did play in the late ’50s, but let’s not be so quick to forget his greatness. Chamberlain scored 29.9 points per game and 18.9 rebounds per game during his career at Kansas, both KU records.

He racked up these numbers while, according to “The Crimson and Blue Handbook” by Eric Nelson and Lauretta McMillen, he was ineligible as a freshman. He holds both the KU scoring record and NBA scoring record for points in a game, with 52 points in a game at Kansas and 100 points in one game in the NBA with the Philadelphia Warriors.

He was the first player to win the Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards in the same season in the NBA.

Chamberlain was not only a star on the court, but he shined off it as well. He had his own radio show while he was a student at Kansas and he also released a record and appeared on “American Bandstand,” according to “The Crimson and Blue Handbook.”

Of course, there is also the famous statement from his autobiography, “A View From Above,” where he claimed to have slept with more than 20,000 women. Chamberlain was one of the first all-stars in the sense of the word now, where it has come to describe the athletes who generate success not only on the court but also off it.

If you need a reminder of Chamberlain’s greatness, just head down to the Booth Hall of Athletics. There they have an entire pillar dedicated to Chamberlain that tells his story and includes items from his career, including his letterman’s jacket, a 1970s Topps basketball card and a collection of photos from his days at Kansas.

John Hadl, former KU football great and now an assistant athletics director at Kansas, said he remembered seeing Chamberlain play in his first game at Kansas.

“He’s Wilt Chamberlain,” Hadl said. “He’s one of the greatest basketball players of all time, professional and collegiate. He was a great guy.”

KANSAN

Chamberlain's No. 13 jersey was retired to the rafters of Allen Fieldhouse in 1998. Chamberlain holds the record for most points scored in a game at the University and in the NBA, with 52 points scored in a game at Kansas and 100 points scored in a single NBA game.

Greatness remembering greatness. Just as Hadl had his jersey inducted into the Ring of Honor at Memorial Stadium, Chamberlain also had his jersey retired and hung from the rafters in Allen Fieldhouse.

Before the next home men’s basketball game in the Fieldhouse, take a second to look up at Chamberlain’s retired jersey and think not only of the talent that Chamberlain possessed, but also of the image he represents for the KU basketball program.

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