March 23, 1957: The past met the future in the Final of NCAA Tournament basketball, at the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium. The past won this battle -- but the future would be back.
The University of North Carolina came into the game undefeated, 31-0, and ranked Number 1 in the country. Head coach Frank McGuire was from New York City, and played at St. John's University before coaching there, leading them to what would later be called the Final Four in 1952.
He built his Carolina team around players from in and around New York. Lennie Rosenbluth was Jewish and from The Bronx. Danny Lotz was Jewish, and from Northport, Long Island. Most of the others were Irish Catholics like McGuire: Bob Cunningham from Manhattan, Pete Brennan and Joe Quigg from Brooklyn, Bob Young from Queens, and his best player, Tommy Kearns from Bergenfield, New Jersey. There were only 3 North Carolinians on the Tar Heels' roster: Ken Rosemond from Hillsborough, Roy Searcy from Draper, and Gehrmann Holland from Beaufort.
The University of Kansas had won the National Championship in 1952 and reached the Final again in 1953. Their legendary coach, Forrest "Phog" Allen -- who had coached Dean Smith, who would eventually succeed McGuire at UNC -- had retired, and in 1955, Allen Field House opened. In 1956-57, Dick Harp took them to a 24-2 record, and the nation's Number 2 ranking. Their only 2 losses, each by just 2 points, were to Iowa State and Oklahoma State, coached by the legendary Henry Iba.
The reason the Jayhawks were this good was Wilton Norman Chamberlain, a 20-year-old sophomore from Overbrook High School in West Philadelphia. He stood 7-foot-1-and-1/16th inch, and weighed 275 pounds. He excelled, as you might guess, in the high jump for Kansas' track team. But in basketball, he was revolutionary. The lane was widened to make it harder for him to operate inside, and it failed.
Forty years later, when the NBA celebrated its 50th Anniversary by naming its 50 Greatest Players, there was a gathering of 47 of them -- 1 was dead, 1 was ill, and the other just didn't show up -- and Michael Jordan, who had played at North Carolina, was telling everyone that he was the greatest player ever. Sure, it's easy, when no one calls traveling on you.
Chamberlain called him out on this: "Michael, my man, when you played, they changed the rules to make it easier for you. When I played, they changed the rules to make it harder for me, and it didn't work."
No one had scored like Wilt. No one had rebounded like Wilt. No one had blocked like Wilt. Kansas' game was simple: Get the ball to Wilt. And, in 24 out of 26 games, it worked. As a result, the sports books made Kansas a 3-point favorite.
McGuire had what sounds like a crazy strategy: Have Kearns, only 5-foot-10, guard Chamberlain. At first, it worked well, as the Tar Heels jumped out to a 19-7 lead. But the Jayhawks came back, and at the half, Carolina's lead was down to 29-22. Kansas took the lead, and the game went back and forth to the end. It went to overtime, and to a 2nd overtime. In the closing seconds of the 3rd overtime, Quigg made 2 free throws to give Carolina a 54-53 win, and the National Championship.
For the Tar Heels: Rosenbluth scored 20, Brennan and Kearns 11 each, Quigg 10, Young 2, and Cunningham and Lotz played without scoring. For the Jayhawks: Chamberlain 23, Gene Elstun and Maurice King 11 each, John Parker 4, Lew Johnson and Ron Loneski 2 each, and Bob Billings played without scoring.
Brennan played 1 season in the NBA, for the New York Knicks. Kearns played 1, for the Syracuse Nationals. Rosenbluth played 2, for the Philadelphia Warriors. That was it.
Kansas went 18-5 in 1957-58, and did not make the NCAA Tournament. Chamberlain forewent his senior year, and played the 1958-59 season with the Harlem Globetrotters, making more money that season than any NBA player did.
Eligible to be selected by an NBA team for 1959-60, he was a territorial pick for the Warriors, and singlehandedly rewrote the league's record book. In 1961-62, he averaged 50.4 points per game, including a 100-point game against the Knicks; and 25.7 rebounds, including a 55-rebound game against Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics (who won the game, anyway). The Warriors' coach that season? Frank McGuire.
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March 23, 1957 was a Saturday. Actress Amanda Plummer was born on this day. She was the daughter of actors Christopher Plummer and Tammy Grimes.
Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There was 1 game played in the NBA: The Boston Celtics beat the Syracuse Nationals, 120-105 at the Onondaga County War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse.
The NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:
* The New York Rangers beat the Boston Bruins, 4-2 at the Boston Garden.
* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 3-0 at the Montreal Forum.
* And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.
And in English soccer, Arsenal, having fallen from their heights of earlier in the decade, held Birmingham-area team Wolverhampton Wanderers, then one of the top teams in the country, to a 0-0 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.
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