Lot 125
  • 125

1957-58 Wilt Chamberlain Kansas Jayhawks Home Jersey Worn During His Final Collegiate Season - From Chamberlain Estate

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Description

Wilt Chamberlain’s enormous impact on Kansas was immediately established on the KU basketball court and spilled over to the bus seats and lunch counters of the white campus and community.



A high school All-American who led Overbrook, PA High School to two City Championships and scored 2,252 points, including 90 in one game and measuring a lengthy seven feet tall, Chamberlain was by far the most coveted schoolboy recruit in the country. Surprising many, he opted for Kansas and its basketball tradition set by its legendary coach, “Phog” Allen.



However, in his freshman year in 1955, upon entering a Kansas City restaurant that refused to seat him after he had driven all night from hometown Philadelphia, Wilt found out quickly that much of this area was still segregated.



Three years later, Wilt gave up his senior season and joined the Harlem Globetrotters. By then, thanks to Chamberlain’s presence, many of the segregation barriers in the Kansas City area were beginning to come down.  "He was instrumental in helping to integrate public facilities around here in the late '50s," said Bob Billings, a Lawrence, KS, businessman and former Kansas teammate, in a 1999 AP article.



Chamberlain’s impact was felt immediately on the court where, as part of the”frosh” team, he scored an incredible 42 points in the annual freshmen/varsity game, scoring an upset of 81-71over the senior squad in front of a near capacity crowd of 14,000.



That season the Kansas varsity, without Wilt, finished fifth in its conference, Allen was forced into mandatory retirement and KU looked to Chamberlain to restore the team to glory in the 1956-57 season.



Chamberlain did not disappoint. In his sophomore season, wearing number 13, he was the nation’s fourth leading scorer (29.6 ppg) and fourth-best rebounder. The Jayhawks won the Big Seven Championship and made the NCAA tournament. On the eve of the tournament, Allen announced to the national press that his former team would coast to an NCAA trophy with “Wilt, two sorority girls, and two Phi Beta Kappas” in the lineup.”



Wilt and Kansas breezed through the field until they met the undefeated North Carolina Tar Heels in the NCAA Finals in Kansas City. UNC, coached by Hall of Famer Frank McGuire, sought to neutralize Chamberlain and used the NCAA rules to their utmost effect. Without a shot clock, the Carolina team ran a slow down offense. In a triple-overtime game, Wilt put up only 14 shots against the Carolina zone and its slowdown tactics.



In the first overtime, each team scored one basket. The second overtime featured both teams going scoreless. In the third overtime, down a point, KU set up a play to Chamberlain. Unfortunately, the Kansas player who took the ball out of bounds, Ron Loneski, threw the ball (and the national championship) away in the waning seconds (can anyone say Fred Brown?), and the game, 54-53. Despite losing, Chamberlain was named the tournament MVP and was a unanimous first team All-American.



Chamberlain’s skills were so far advanced than his competitors that several rule changes were enacted to harness his awesome ability and level the playing field. These rules changed included widening the lane and instituting offensive goaltending.



In his junior season, Wilt found he was constantly double and triple teamed by opponents when he played offense and the stall strategy employed when he played defense to deny him a chance to block or rebound for long stretches. Despite these tactics, Chamberlain still excelled and dominated.



During this season he changed his number from 13 to 12, the only year in his high school, college, Globetrotters and NBA career that he wore a different number from 13. Wearing this number 12 home jersey, Wilt was named to the Sporting News First Team All-America and once again a unanimous choice First Team All-America, despite being injured for part of the season.



In his two varsity seasons at Kansas, Chamberlain scored 1,433 points, average of 29.9 per game, and grabbed 877 rebounds, an average of 18.3 per game, in 48 varsity games, including 36 rebounds in one game against. Iowa.



Chamberlain decided to turn pro after his junior season. He was frustrated that his team didn’t make the NCAA tournament and even more so by the tactics employed against him, citing that he wanted to be paid for being double and triple teamed every night. The Philadelphia Warriors had picked him in 1955 as a territorial pick, but he was ineligible to play in the NBA until his college class graduated in 1959. So, in the 1958-59 season, Wilt played a season with the Harlem Globetrotters for a salary estimated to be $50,000, an astronomical sum for the era.



The seven-foot-one “Big Dipper” joined the NBA's Philadelphia Warriors in the 1959-60 season and was an immediate attention grabber and dominating force. Chamberlain became the first player in NBA history named MVP and Rookie of the Year in the same season, and along the way set eight NBA season records.



Even through his Hall of Fame career, his time at Kansas was dear to Wilt. In 1998, KU invited Chamberlain to return to celebrate the school's 100th anniversary of basketball. When Wilt entered, 16,000 fans gave him a standing ovation.



“When he came off the court,” his friend and teammate Billings remembered, “He said ‘Bob, I've had a lot of great days in my life, but this is the greatest day of my life.' "



Wilt Chamberlain has autographed this Kansas junior year game worn home jersey in black sharpie on the front panel under the number 12 and added “12” in sharpie. Also included is the 1957 NCAA Final Four Basketball Championship Program listing all four teams, 28 pages, in excellent condition; 12 issues of the “Jayhawker” Kansas State student magazines yearbooks, bound in three years, from 1956-1958, the 1957 binder is autographed by Chamberlain in blue sharpie. All are in overall excellent condition, binders have some foxing and age wear. This jersey was originally obtained directly from Wilt Chamberlain by SCP Auctions President David Kohler. An LOA from Mr. Kohler is provided. Additional LOAs from MEARS (Grade A10) and PSA/DNA.