A movement is currently underway to have a federal postage stamp honoring the late basketball Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain. “Wilt not only did great things on the basketball court, he was also a champion of equal rights off the court,” says
Chamberlain, who died in 1999, would be joining baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson, Negro League great Satchel Paige, boxer Joe Louis, along with track stars Jesse Owens and Wilma Rudolph as Black sports legends with postage stamps in their honor.
Among those leading a petition drive to get Chamberlain on a postage stamp are his sisters, Selena Gross of Philadelphia and Barbara Lewis of Los Angeles. “I’d be very proud and if that happens and I’m sure he would be too,” Gross said.
“We need to honor more people who have done great things in our society.” The campaign to get a Chamberlain stamp was started by Donald Hunt, a sportswriter for the Philadelphia Tribune, an African American newspaper. “People should remember the great ones,” Hunt said. “They don’t come any bigger or better than Wilt Chamberlain.”
Gross said there has been plenty of support for a Chamberlain stamp and that over 5,000 people nationwide have signed a petition. “The outpouring of support has been great,” Gross added. “There are so many people who loved Wilt as a player and as a person.” “While most people remember what Wilt did on the court, a lot of people don’t realize what he did off the court,” Birts added.
“While he wasn’t all that vocal about it, he fought for equal rights in his own way.” One of Chamberlain’s trademarks was a rubber band he wore around his right wrist during games. He once said every time he would think how he hard he had it; he would pull on the rubber band to remember the struggle of his people.
Chamberlain, like Robinson, faced many obstacles because of his race. During the early days of his career, the NBA had an unwritten rule about the number of Black players on each team. During trips to cities like a segregated Jefferson City, Mo., he had to endure racial segregation in restaurants. One of the 50 greatest NBA players of all-time, Chamberlain, who starred with the Philadelphia (San Francisco) Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers and Los Angeles Lakers, dominated the NBA in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
He averaged an incredible 50 points a game during the 1961-62 season for the Warriors and that same season he scored 100 points in a game against the New York Knicks, which is still considered one of the greatest accomplishments in all of sports. The 31,419 points Chamberlain scored during his 13-year NBA career stood as a record until Kareem Abdul- Jabbar broke it in 1984.
Chamberlain, who never fouled out in 1,205 regular- season and playoff games, also holds the rebounding record for a career with 23,924 and in one game with 55. Compared unfavorably more than once with fellow Hall of Famer Bill Russell, it was against the Celtic star that Chamberlain was playing against when he hauled down those 55 rebounds. Chamberlain was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1979.
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