The Eagles And Colts Were The Opening Act For Wilt Chamberlain's 100-Point Game

Today is the 50th anniversary of the night Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points for the Philadelphia Warriors in a 169-147 win over the New York Knicks in Hershey, Pa. Gary Pomerantz's 2006 book, Wilt, 1962: The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era, remains the most authoritative account of what happened, but this week the Philadelphia Daily News published an oral history in which writer Mark Kram talked to a number of those who were there, including then-Eagles quarterback Sonny Jurgensen, who had joined some of his teammates in a pre-game scrimmage against members of the Baltimore Colts.

Highlights from the Daily News's account include Knicks center Darrall Imhoff, who is still sore about how Wilt reached his milestone:

They let him pour it on. Once he broke the scoring record, which was 70-some points, he should have come out of the game. They were ahead. Heck, they ended up beating us, 169-147. We were irritated. [...] What happened was the game became crazy. The Warriors started fouling us intentionally in the backcourt just to stop the clock just so they could get the ball back in order for him to shoot.

Pomerantz, on whether the loose rims at the Hershey Arena helped Chamberlain—a career 51-percent free-throw shooter—make 28 of his 32 foul shots that night:

There was something to it. I spoke with people in Hershey and was told by them that when the circus came to town and played there, they pushed these baskets to the side of the arena. And kids would sneak in during the off hours. They would bring a basketball, and they would borrow the clown's springboard. And they would do these running jumps, bounce off the springboard and fly through the air like little Wilt Chamberlain. And they would dunk the ball. But as they were coming down, they would grab the rim and hold onto them, then fall catlike to the ground. So they were working those rims.

Warriors forward Joe Ruklick, on his immediate reaction after Chamberlain reached 100:

I am ashamed of what I did then. I went over to the official scorer and said, "Don't forget to give me that assist."

Go check out the rest of it here.