Wilt Chamberlain

Wilt Chamberlain, whose outsized presence and overwhelming talent helped reshape the National Basketball Association and rewrite its record books over a 14-year career, died yesterday at 63 of an apparent heart attack.Mr. Chamberlain was found dead in bed at his Bel-Air home in Los Angeles at about 12: 30 p.m., police said. Mr. Chamberlain was hospitalized with an irregular heartbeat in 1992, and Sonny Hill, the Philadelphia basketball guru who was one of his closest friends, said Mr. Chamberlain was going to be getting a pacemaker.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - -Humble and reflective earlier in the day, Michael Jordan showed once again Friday night why his competitive fire never will be extinguished as he officially entered the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Jordan basically trash-talked his way through his acceptance speech, thanking all those slights - real and perceived - for adding "wood to the fire" and motivating him during his unparalleled career. He then closed with a tantalizing thought. "One time you might look up and see me playing the game at 50," Jordan said, drawing chuckles.

The top single-game individual scoring performances in NBA playoff history. The Chicago Bulls' Michael Jordan scored 56 in a 119-114 victory over the Miami Heat on Thursday night:Pts... .. Player.. .. .. .. .. .. Game.. .. .. .. .. . Year63 Michael Jordan .. .. .. Chicago at Boston, 2OT.. .. 198661 Elgin Baylor.. .. .. .. L.A. Lakers at Boston.. .. 196256 Michael Jordan.. .. .. Chicago at Miami.. .. .. .. 1992 56 Wilt Chamberlain.. .. Philadelphia vs. Syracuse.. ..196255 Rick Barry.. .. .. San Francisco vs. Philadelphia.

The Rivalry: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball John Taylor Random House / 432 pages I am a little too young to have seen two of the greatest centers in basketball history during their primes. Bill Russell, the Boston Celtics star whose teams won 11 National Basketball Association titles from the late 1950s to the late 1960s, turned pro the year I was born. Wilt Chamberlain, the only man to score 100 points in an NBA game, and who averaged 30 points and 23 rebounds per game over his 14-year career, was on the downslide by the time I really began paying attention to basketball in the early 1970s.

The Los Angeles Lakers will retire Magic Johnson's No. 32 jersey at halftime of their Feb. 16 game at The Forum against the Boston Celtics. Since Johnson announced his retirement Nov. 7 after testing positive for AIDS-causing HIV, the question has been not if, but when, the jersey would be retired.NBC will televise the game and also air the special halftime ceremony. The date was chosen by Johnson and the Lakers, as was the decision to have his number retired now. One of Johnson's best friends in the league is Boston's Larry Bird.

Bob Lanier, one of the newest Basketball Hall of Fame members, rarely gave ground during his many years in the NBA. At 6-11 and 260 pounds, he didn't have to.But there was this one time in Detroit, where he was jousting for position with Wilt Chamberlain."

Could he score his age?At least one center is upset about the way the U.S. Olympic men's basketball team was selected. And can you blame the guy? Look at his credentials: He once averaged 50 points for a season, scored 100 in a single game, led the NBA in scoring, rebounds and assists during his career.You may have heard of him -- Wilt Chamberlain. So what if he's 55?"Who gave them the right to say that Wilt Chamberlain can't try out for the team if he wants to?" Chamberlain said. "It's ridiculous.

It belabors the obvious to say that it is a profound tragedy that so winsome and talented a young man as Earvin "Magic" Johnson has become infected with the AIDS virus. But there is also profound irony. Johnson's stunning disclosure comes at a time when another basketball great, Wilt Chamberlain, is promoting his newly published biography in which he claims to have had "sexual encounters" with 20,000 women.The claim is obviously spurious; it would mean three "encounters" a day for 20 years.

AFTER RUMMAGING through five bookcases with about 15 shelves, I still can't find it. Where is it? Where is my autobiography of Wilt Chamberlain?Murphy's law -- the one that says anything that can go wrong will -- and all its corollaries and contrapositives are in effect here. I've found "Bill Walton" by author Jack Scott, stumbled on "Giant Steps" by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with Peter Knobler. I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw "Second Wind" by Bill Russell with Baltimore's own Taylor Branch buried in the third row of one shelf.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The ugly Game 7 exit by the Indiana Pacers reminded me of coach Larry Brown's comment earlier in the NBA Eastern Conference finals. Talking about the modern player in general and his own Pacers in particular, Brown said, "I don't know where they're comin' from, and sometimes I don't know if they're showin' up."The Magic and Rockets are showin' up tomorrow night to start the NBA championship series, and here's some stuff to mull and ponder . . .* Brown did a great job getting his limited Pacers as far as he got 'em, but you wonder if Larry himself showed up Sunday night.

Noise and insults out of the stands rise in direct proportion to the quality of the home team. Dynasties feed fan frenzy, and it's no coincidence that some of the nation's most successful programs also have the most rabid supporters. Kentucky's Rupp Arena seats 23,000 and gets as loud as an airport runway, but it's too impersonal for effective taunting. Wisconsin rarely loses at the Kohl Center, but Badgers basketball fans are demure compared with the football version. It was impossible to win at St. Bonaventure in the 1950s, but now there's little reason to back the Bonnies.

Beyond speculating on what their teams might do in the second half of the season, the NBA's All-Stars spent the biggest block of answering time last weekend in Atlanta responding to questions about what life will be like in the league post-Michael Jordan. That, of course, assumes that this retirement will take as opposed to the previous two attempts by Jordan to hang up his sneakers. Tucked neatly inside the question of what happens to the league after Jordan retires is who assumes his moniker as the NBA's ambassador.

AFTER RUMMAGING through five bookcases with about 15 shelves, I still can't find it. Where is it? Where is my autobiography of Wilt Chamberlain?Murphy's law -- the one that says anything that can go wrong will -- and all its corollaries and contrapositives are in effect here. I've found "Bill Walton" by author Jack Scott, stumbled on "Giant Steps" by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with Peter Knobler. I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw "Second Wind" by Bill Russell with Baltimore's own Taylor Branch buried in the third row of one shelf.

No plans have been announced as to where Wilt Chamberlain, who died suddenly yesterday at the age of 63, will be put to rest. But if the basketball legend had his way, his epitaph would read: "Nobody loves Goliath."In this era of superlatives, when every unusual sports feat is heralded as extraordinary and every clutch basket by Michael Jordan was etched in stone, it is easy to forget how Wilton Norman Chamberlain totally dominated pro basketball in the '60s with both his brute strength and athletic ability.

Wilt Chamberlain, whose outsized presence and overwhelming talent helped reshape the National Basketball Association and rewrite its record books over a 14-year career, died yesterday at 63 of an apparent heart attack.Mr. Chamberlain was found dead in bed at his Bel-Air home in Los Angeles at about 12: 30 p.m., police said. Mr. Chamberlain was hospitalized with an irregular heartbeat in 1992, and Sonny Hill, the Philadelphia basketball guru who was one of his closest friends, said Mr. Chamberlain was going to be getting a pacemaker.

Chet Forte, longtime director of ABC's "Monday Night Football" who became a radio sports talk-show host at age 55, died at 5 a.m. yesterday from a heart attack at his home between Del Mar and Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. He was 61.Forte, who had a history of heart problems, had triple bypass surgery on June 17 of last year.For the past five years, Forte had been paired with Steve Hartman on San Diego-based XTRA radio, and the two billed themselves as "The Loose Cannons."Forte, a 5-foot-8 guard for Columbia, was a consensus All-American and the United Press International player of the year in 1957, when he averaged 28.9 points per game, second in the nation to Kansas' Wilt Chamberlain (29.6)

One day I was talking to a Virginia newspaper sports editor about Wilt Chamberlain's boastful claim in his new, self-adulatory book, "A View From Above," that he has had sex with 20,000 women during his lifetime, and the next day, Magic Johnson was retiring from basketball, having tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS.Is there justice in this?I don't know. None of us knows. We know Wilt Chamberlain is incredibly self-indulgent, irresponsible and shallow.

Noise and insults out of the stands rise in direct proportion to the quality of the home team. Dynasties feed fan frenzy, and it's no coincidence that some of the nation's most successful programs also have the most rabid supporters. Kentucky's Rupp Arena seats 23,000 and gets as loud as an airport runway, but it's too impersonal for effective taunting. Wisconsin rarely loses at the Kohl Center, but Badgers basketball fans are demure compared with the football version. It was impossible to win at St. Bonaventure in the 1950s, but now there's little reason to back the Bonnies.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The ugly Game 7 exit by the Indiana Pacers reminded me of coach Larry Brown's comment earlier in the NBA Eastern Conference finals. Talking about the modern player in general and his own Pacers in particular, Brown said, "I don't know where they're comin' from, and sometimes I don't know if they're showin' up."The Magic and Rockets are showin' up tomorrow night to start the NBA championship series, and here's some stuff to mull and ponder . . .* Brown did a great job getting his limited Pacers as far as he got 'em, but you wonder if Larry himself showed up Sunday night.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Every 15 years or so, the Golden State Warriors make a BIG mistake, and they made one last night, right on cue.Trading Chris Webber will haunt this franchise for as long as the 1980 trade of Robert Parish and the 1965 trade of Wilt Chamberlain -- and that's if the Warriors are lucky.Webber, only 21, may haunt them longer.On paper, Webber to Washington for Tom Gugliotta and three first-round draft picks is a better deal than those previous Hall of Shame entries. Gugliotta is a very good player, better than Joe Barry Carroll or Connie Dierking and the two other stiffs the Warriors got for Chamberlain.