Think of the enduring sports images of the 1960s. The euphoric Bill Mazeroski bounding through fans toward home plate to end the 1960 World Series. Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston in Lewiston, Maine, in 1965, screaming, "Get up and fight, sucker!" John Carlos and Tommie Smith in protest at the 1968 Olympics, black-gloved fists raised.
And Wilt Chamberlain in 1962, holding up a piece of scrap paper with a number scratched onto it: "100."
To commemorate his record-setting 100-point game, Wilt Chamberlain held up a handmade sign at the behest of a team publicist.
That last photo, an improvisational beginning to sports' promotional wizardry of today, is an artifact that has become—like Warhol's soup cans—a piece of Americana worthy of careful study for what it tells us about Wilt and the only single-triple in NBA history.
Fifty years ago Friday—March 2, 1962—Chamberlain threw down his 100-point thunderbolt against the New York Knicks. In the Philadelphia Warriors' 169-147 victory, he made 36 of 63 field-goal attempts on an array of fall-aways, dunks and put-backs. The night's more astonishing numbers came at the free-throw line where the notoriously poor shooter, the Shaq of the 1960s, made 28 of 32 tries. Always searching for an answer, Chamberlain that season shot free throws underhanded, knees flared wide.
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