Wilt the Stilt

Forrest C. ("Phog") Allen, veteran basketball coach at the University of Kansas, turned 70 last month. As might be expected, he celebrated his birthday by watching a basketball game. It was quite a party. Phog saw his varsity soundly trounced, by the K.U. freshmen 81-71-- and yet he was the happiest man in the jampacked fieldhouse. Not that Phog likes to lose, but it was pure pleasure for him to watch the biggest freshman of them all, Wilton Chamberlain (7 ft. 2 in., 230 Ibs.), dunk in 42 points all by himself. In 39 years of talking tall young men into coming to Kansas for their higher education, Phog Allen has never recruited a more promising student of basketball than "Wilt the Stilt."

The Philadelphia Negro is the main reason that Phog is still coaching. Kansas regents require that state college teachers retire at 70, but once Phog got his hands on the three-story Stilt, he wasted no time talking the regents into letting him stick to his job. "I'm not going to miss the chance to coach this kid," he said. "He's the greatest basketball player alive today."

Feel & Touch. While Wilt was still a student at Philadelphia's Overbrook High School, at least 140 different colleges shared Phog's high opinion of him. They offered Wilt the world--tuition, cars, free air travel home on weekends--but Phog outfoxed them all. After peddling Kansas' virtues to Wilt and his coach, he turned his charm on Wilt's mother ("Mrs. Chamberlain, now I see why Wilt is such a nice boy").

Phog then called in reinforcements, managed to enlist the help of 1) Negro Concert Singer Etta Moten, a Kansas alumna, who wrote to the Chamberlains, 2) Dowdal H. Davis, general manager of a Kansas City Negro weekly, who flew east to make his pitch, 3) Professor Calvin Vanderwerf, of K.U.'s chemistry department, who passed through Philadelphia and called on Wilt's mother. Said Mrs. Chamberlain: "We've had many colleges speak to us about Wilton, but you're the first one who was a professor. I'm so happy to have someone talk about the academic side." By the end of May, Phog Allen and K.U. had won the Stilt sweepstakes. "Wilton," he said, "I know you'll be happy here."

Sudden Amnesia. To make sure that both he and Wilt stay happy, Phog himself works with the freshman phenomenon twice a week. One of the first things he did was to start Wilt reading Helen Keller's The Story of My Life "to develop his sense of feel and touch." Phog's current project: teaching Wilt finger manipulation, how to put English on the ball, how to spin it in from all angles when he is jammed in the bucket.

The demand to see those big fingers in operation is so great that Phog has had to rearrange his schedule to put the freshmen on the program before each home varsity game. "Everywhere I go," says Phog, "they ask me about Wilt the Stilt. I've seen them all: Joe Lapchick,* Clyde Lovelette, Hank Luisetti--all the top men, and this kid is the best I've ever seen. For 20 years I've used a twelve-foot basket in my gym; as far as I know, I'm the only coach who does it. Wilt can touch the rim of that basket on a jump. He can jump 24 inches off the floor. I've never seen a tall man in my life who could equal it. This kid actually slams the ball down into the basket. He uses two hands and just whams it right down in."

Ever since basketball was first invaded by big men, Phog Allen has campaigned loudly to have that twelve-foot basket of his made regulation; the regulation height is now ten feet. The big shooters, he has argued often, are killing the passing, the dribbling, the teamwork that makes basketball exciting. But now Phog has Wilt the Stilt. Says he with a quiet smile: "Twelve-foot baskets? What are you talking about? I've developed amnesia."

* Who now coaches the N.Y. Knickerbockers, and last week was still complaining because the Philadelphia Warriors had draft rights to Wilt as of 1959 even before he went to Kansas.

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