Michael Vitez: Chamberlain was bigger than the game

Watching a Wilt Chamberlain tribute video before covering the 76ers' home opener Friday night made me nostalgic. Got me to thinking.

Twenty years ago, as a feature writer for this newspaper, I spent an entire day with Wilt Chamberlain in New York City. I will never forget it.

Wilt, 55, was promoting his new autobiography, A View From Above, which was most notable for its calculation of his own sexual conquests. He claimed that he had sex with 20,000 women in 40 years - 500 women a year, a number he called modest and only a fraction of the lovemaking available to him. He told me that women just came on to him all day, every day.

"They wonder if they can handle a man of my physical size," he said. (For the record, he was 7-foot-1, but his shoe size was just 14 1/2.)

Anyway, at one point - he was going from book signing to book signing - we went back to his fancy Midtown hotel. He wanted to change clothes. We were riding up in the elevator with Regina, the aerobics instructor, and she was being awfully sweet to him.

"You can come up to the gym and work out any time," she offered with a smile. "You can be my personal guest."

Wilt kept nudging me, sticking his fingers into my ribs.

I kept thinking - what is he doing?

We got off the elevator at his floor.

"See!" he said to me. "See!"

"See what?" I said.

"She was coming on to me!"

This struck me like a thunderbolt.

"She was just being nice to you," I told him.

Wilt looked at me with disbelief and disgust, as if I were truly a failure as a man.

Still makes me smile.

I really had fun with Wilt. He was honest and expansive and reflective. He regretted wasting the 1980s on the beach in Hawaii with women in bikinis, and said he now found "curling up in bed with Smithsonian magazine just as rewarding."

He had views on so many things. (You can read my original story at philly.com/wilt.) I will be 55 in a few months, the age he was when I interviewed him. This gives me a whole new appreciation for that interview. It is natural at this age to reflect on one's decisions in life, to contemplate making the most of the good years that remain.

Wilt seemed in far better shape then than I am now, absolutely no gut, sculpted in his tight T-shirt. The world never fully appreciated what an athlete he was. During the filming of Conan the Destroyer, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Wilt said he put five 50-pound weights on his rib cage, elevated his feet on an incline board, and did 30 sit-ups.

"Arnold couldn't believe it," Wilt said. "He wouldn't even try it."

When I met him that day in 1991, the Sixers had just retired his number, and he told me that was "the most moving day of my life." So many fans thanking him. "I should have been the one saying 'Thank you,' " he said.

Wilt died in 1999.

He would have loved the video homage to him the Sixers showed Monday night and will again many times this season to reconnect the team with its legacy.

The man was undeniably Philadelphia's greatest homegrown athlete. He was large, and he was larger than life. And thanks, Wilt, for sharing one day with me.

Wilt or Will?

In working on a profile on the Sixers new CEO, Adam Aron, I went to a fan party with him at a Chickie's and Pete's on Wednesday night.

There I met Mannwell D. Glenn, 50, a graduate of Overbrook High School, Wilt's alma mater. Glenn reminded me that Will Smith, the world-famous actor and one of the new owners of the 76ers, also went to Overbrook.

So which one, I asked him, would be considered the school's most esteemed alumnus - Wilt or Will?

Who is No. 1?

"This raises an interesting question," Glenn said. "Who would you pick: The No. 1 movie star in the world or the greatest player ever in the NBA?"

Glenn was on a roll and kept going.

"One played for the Sixers and tried to buy the Sixers. Wilt had a handshake deal. The other wound up owning the Sixers.

"Wilt changed the game. They changed the rules for him. He's the standard by which all other centers are judged. Will is kind of like the Barack Obama of Hollywood and show business."

"Wilt was going to box Muhammad Ali. Will played Ali.

"Wilt did movies. Will did not play ball."

"I guess it's a generational question," he concluded.

I love Will Smith in Independence Day and many other movies. I am a big fan.

But I pick Wilt over Will.

He was iconic. On top of everything else, he ran the 440 in 49 seconds and high-jumped 6-6 at Overbrook.

I say Wilt. What do you think?