An excerpt from the "My Hero" project: "I guess I picked Mr. Chamberlain because of one factor: determination." — Winston from Fredericksburg
An end was finally put to the Rafael Palmeiro Hall of Fame discussion when it was revealed Monday that he is a fraud. I can't say I'm surprised to hear the Viagra spokesman juices on the field, too, but with sports the way it is today, I'm sick and tired of fakes. That is why I will always have a certain amount of respect for Wilt Chamberlain. Not just because he was one of the greatest players of all-time, but more impressive to me was his ability to score as he bedded more than 20,000 different women over his lifetime.
I know that Wilt took a ton of heat for making that claim almost 15 years ago in his autobiography, but come on, 20,000 different women? He figured it out to be about 1.2 different women every day from the age of 15. Simply put, that is one overwhelmingly impressive statistic, regardless of how one feels about sex. For instance, I don't necessarily condone eating a lot of hot dogs in a short period of time, but I'm still impressed when a small Japanese man can down about 78 in three minutes.
There will always be people who try to turn this against him. People like Arthur Ashe, who claims that Wilt represented his race poorly for sleeping with so many women. Many said that Chamberlain was only reinforcing stereotypes of black men with his sexual promiscuity.
If I had a platform to defend Wilt back in 1991, I would've called those people out for their BS. I would have told Wilt that no one should be able to tell him how he should live his life and that if people are small enough to think only in stereotypes, screw them. And if you find people that don't think in stereotypes, screw them, too. And if you find people that don't even think, you would probably need to screw at least some of them, just to keep up the numbers. If people are pissed at 20k, just wait till you break 40.
The bottom line is that if Wilt liked playing the field, who are we to tell him he's wrong? For someone who slept around, he certainly did it the right way. Despite his numbers, he made the responsible play and didn't leave a trail of children everywhere he went. How is it that Shawn Kemp can have 47 kids from 17 different women, but Wilt the Stilt can roll 20,000 chicas and not get a single card on Father's Day?
Wilton Norman Chamberlain also never slept with a married woman, often going to great lengths to make sure they were single.
"I made a conscious effort to find out. Even as a single man, infidelity has no place in my life," Wilt wrote in his autobiography.
It seems athletes like Kobe Bryant, Johnny Damon, and Barry Bonds (I know I'm leaving out plenty of adulterers, I just named those three mainly because I don't like them and their faults come to mind quicker) could learn a thing or two from The Big Dipper. He also kept some decent standards, as he once said that the girls of the 20k club were women that "the average Joe would have proposed marriage to on the first date."
Chamberlain set many records on the court, but it's his off-the-court statistic that will stand the test of time. Realistically, there is no way any professional athlete could ever match this feat. First, you have the stupid athletes (the Shawn Kemps and Ron Mexicos of the world) who end any chance of reaching 20k before they start by racking up child support charges or passing around diseases.
Then, on top of that, you have too many gold-digging girls out there today. Wilt would have spent more time in court instead of on the court if he played now. We would have a Kobe-esque trial on our hands every season (which would make Wilt a "courageous" person for playing during it, of course). He could get paid triple the going rate for one of the best big men in basketball, pull a Paris Hilton and release a series of sex tapes, and do every commercial on TV and still not have enough hush money to keep his numbers up.
Sure, there will be haters that will immediately claim that his claim is false, to which I would respond by claiming that their claim that his claim is false is false (which eventually leads to a slippery slope). While we will never know for sure, I believe him. He ended up taking more heat than praise for this, and he's Wilt Chamberlain, he didn't need to lie to impress people.
Wilt benefited from many things in setting his records (both on and off the court), but two things I'd wager he didn't benefit from are steroids and Viagra. It seems like these days, the asterisks shouldn't be going to the players who cheated, but to the players who did it the right way. If nothing else, you have to admire the man's determination.
The Sports Gospel According to Mark is sponsored by BetOnSports.com. BetOnSports.com gives you the greatest sports action to bet on. Wager on football, cricket, boxing, Rugby, horse racing, and more. Mark Chalifoux is also a weekly columnist for SportsFan Magazine. His columns appear every Tuesday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Mark at [email protected].
Leave a Comment