THE CENTURION OF NBA - WILT CHAMBERLAIN AND HIS 100 POINT GAME

The centurion Wilt Chamberlain 

The evening of 1962, and about 4,000 people at the Hershey Sports Arena in Pennsylvania witnessed history being made as Wilt Chamberlain hit a century to power his team  Philadelphia Warriors (now Philadelphia 76ers) to a resounding win in a high scoring match against New York Knicks.

It has been more than fifty years since that day in March - and till date no other player has come close to emulating Chamberlain's stunning performance in a competitive NBA match.  Just for the record, Wilt Chamberlain's name features six times in the top ten of highest points scored by a player. Kobe Bryant with 81 points comes second.

AGAINST EXPECTATIONS

NBA as we know today was nowhere a commercially successful league back in the 1960's. The college basketball still remained popular, which was highlighted in the limited number of people that attended the match. Wilt Chamberlain in his third year was a popular player, but unlike the hype surrounding Roger Bannister's historic 4-minute mile, 100 points by a player in an NBA match was something that one could only dream of, it still remains that way!

Chamberlain played all the 48 minutes of the game spread across the four quarters. With 25 rebounds, 36 Field Goals, and 28 Free Throws, the 'big dipper' went on to create history on the 4th quarter of the match.

ONE FOR THE MEMORY

Not only the match had limited public viewers, this historic game was poorly covered by the media and had no broadcast coverage. In fact there is no video recording of the game barring for few audio clippings. Except for articles that came in as match reports and aftermath analysis, this once in a lifetime record was destined for 'selective' members and for few eyes only. There has been silver jubilee celebrations, 50 years anniversary recollecting that magic night of March 2nd, 1962.... however, no matter what celebrations are arranged, the achievement will remain as one for the memory!