Wilt Chamberlain is known by sports fans as one of the most dominant basketball players of all time. For people less familiar with the sport and basketball specifically, the name Wilt Chamberlain might sound familiar due to his much-publicized personal life. What many people don’t realize is that before basketball became the focus of his life, the first sport that Wilt loved was track and field.
Chamberlain was born on August 21, 1936 and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he had eight brothers and sisters who all came from the same parents, father William and mother Olivia. As a young man growing up in eastern Pennsylvania, Wilt stated that his first reaction to the game of basketball was that he considered it “a game of sissies”. The sport that the young Wilt Chamberlain was most passionate about was track and field.
Before he reached high school age, the oddly athletic Wilt Chamberlain was reported to have jumped as high as 6’6″ a mark that would win most high school track meets. Around the same time Wilt was also putting up ridiculously impressive broad jump numbers which are understood to be 22 feet. For comparison purposes, almost all high jump track athletes could not reach 22 feet in a long jump and they reached the long jump. Talents might be to be expected given what the public now knows of his success on the basketball court, but Wilt’s track and field prowess was not limited to the vaulting events.
With his long strides and powerful running style, Chamberlain was a super middle-distance runner whose previous time of 49 seconds in the 440-yard dash (once around a standard course) and under two minutes in the 880-yard dash (twice around a standard course) were exceptional numbers even for collegiate athletes. Chamberlain excelled in every aspect of track and field including running, jumping, and throwing. He reportedly threw a bullet over 53 feet in his youth.
Chamberlain matured very quickly and continued to grow at a rapid pace. At age 10, the guy was 6′ tall and by the time he started high school he was an impressive 6’11”. As a 7’2″ college freshman playing basketball at the University of Kansas (commonly referred to as KU), the 240-pound Chamberlain could reach 9’6″ in the air standing flat (without toes).
Wilt took up his first love of track and field at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas while also playing basketball there. The 7’2″ Goliath ran the 11-second 100-yard dash and also threw the 56-foot putt. Despite competing and excelling in both the sprint and throwing his best events, it came as no surprise that the jumping events, where Chamberlain triple jumped over 50 feet and successfully won the Big 8 Conference high jump competition three years in a row. and throwing events. This dynamic set of talents is so rare in fact that Wilt may be the only man ever to possess such a unique skill set.
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