Wilt Chamberlain to be on Postage Stamp

[PHILA]

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/201...ter-this-year/


Philadelphia Basketball Legend Finally Going To Be Immortalized On US Postage Stamp

[I]September 28, 2014

PHILADELPHIA (CBS)

[GOATbrook]

Lazzerus right now

[senelcoolidge]

This is actually cool. I would pick up one of these and I don't care about stamps.

[jongib369]

"Among basketball legends, only Naismith himself, the game's inventor, has been featured on a stamp. He was honored in 1961 when first-class postage cost 4 cents, said USPS spokesman Roy Betts. A few stamps have honored the sport of basketball in a general sense, including a "player" stamp in 1983, an Olympics edition in 1996 and a youth-sports stamp in 2000."

[inclinerator]

[HomieWeMajor]

But will the letters deliver in the clutch ?

[rhowen4]

Yeah sure he deserves it

[kurple]

Lazzerus right now

its actually a pretty big thing. Laz will never get any closer to licking Wilt's assh0le

[La Frescobaldi]

Russell was recently recognized as a civil rights leader. But Chamberlain was just a different person. He didn't ever march as far as I know, didn't shout or yell about unfairness or whatever, so naturally he is forgot in that area.
I could tell a couple stories that I saw about how he handled all that stuff, but let's say he got real abrupt. Like one time he went over the bench into the stands after a guy. Another time he raised his hand and that guy just fled. I remember Oscar Robertson getting thrown out once for flinging a fan into the stands over.... PC comments. but any way here's one.

His 'credo,' if you will, was very simple, one we heard him talk about on a playground one day in Philly. There was a bunch of guys that showed up and they were asking him why he didn't go on civil rights marches or talk about any of that. There were crowds, see, everywhere Wilt went - big crowds would gather because he was not just a celebrity, he was.... well he had a charisma that just attracted people.
So anyhow it's a real long time ago, don't remember exact words. he talked about going to the South and separate drinking fountains, had a story I heard him tell and also read about at least a couple times, about the whole team eating sandwiches on the bus instead of going to two different restaurants. But what he said went about like this.

"I don't go in for all that stuff. Yeah it was bad a hundred years ago, and yeah my dad had it bad. I can tell you it's real bad in the South right now, guys in separate hotels. Even on the team. But this is now, man, it is today. I don't have time to look back at all that.
You're either a man, or you're not. And that's how I look at you.
I'm here now, a man, and that's how I look at everyone. You have to look at each person."

Easy enough for a rich, world famous dude to say that, I guess. But no, he didn't march or shout or go in for all the slogans and stuff, instead he just measured each person for who he was. And, as far as I know, he pretty much lived his life just like that. It was much simpler than Russell, more direct and... personal, in a way. The dude had pride, had a lotta pride, and it showed all the time.

[SexSymbol]

Yes, they wanted to put a Choking Hazard sign on a stamp, but opted for Wilt instead, as he's associated with choking more often

[PHILA]

I could tell a couple stories that I saw about how he handled all that stuff, but let's say he got real abrupt. Like one time he went over the bench into the stands after a guy. Another time he raised his hand and that guy just fled. I remember Oscar Robertson getting thrown out once for flinging a fan into the stands over.... PC comments.

We can only imagine the press if this happened today. Wilt even told a story in his autobiography of getting pulled over in New York just after the Watts Riots.



Wilt: Just Like Any Other 7-Foot Black Millionaire who Lives Next Door - Wilt Chamberlain (1973)

I got stopped by a cop in New York, and he damn near shot me. I'd bought a nightclub in Harlem several years earlier - Big Wilt's Small Paradise - and after I'd worked 18 hours a day one off-season, learning the business, I'd brought in a friend to manage the place for me. I always try to stop by when I'm in New York, and I was on my way back from there to my apartment, on Central Park West, when this cop started following me. He pulled me over, and said, "Let me see your license, boy."

I gave him the license, and asked him what the problem was.

"Be with you in a minute, boy," he said.

He kept calling me "boy," and I didn't like it much. I told him my name was on my driver's license, "and I'd suggest you use it."

This was just a few nights after the Watts riot, and cops everywhere were even more uptight than usual around blacks. He pulled his gun out of his holster, stuck it in the window about six inches from my head and cocked it. I said, "OK, mother-****er, you cocked that thing, you might as well pull the trigger." Then I started to get out of the car. Fortunately for me, the cop backed off. He pulled his gun away and apologized, and I snatched my license back and roared off, with him still standing there, holding his gun. It wasn't until I got home and got into bed that I realized how close I'd come to getting my head blown off.

[ralph_i_el]

people that watched Wilt play are the only people still using snail mail

[LAZERUSS]

people that watched Wilt play are the only people still using snail mail

They created the internet. You should be thanking them.

[Dragic4Life]

But will the letters deliver in the clutch ?

[ralph_i_el]

They created the internet. You should be thanking them.

They get enough thanks from my social security taxes