Come ahead, and with one bend in the road, imagine yourself in

Seoul, late in September of 1988 as the U.S. Olympic basketball team

takes the court for its opening game against Spain. The starting five

for the Spaniards is introduced: Creus and Villacampa at the guards,

Sibilio and San Epifanio at the forwards and Martin at center. And

then the Americans: Lebo and Rivers at the guards, Ellison and

Manning at the forwards and Chamberlain at center. The cheers are so

great for the one player, the last man, that the referee, Fiorito of

Italy, delays the jump for three minutes, until finally the roar of

the crowd dies down. ''O.K., my man,'' the big fellow says, taking

his crouch.

It does not seem possible (except, of course, that time flies when

there are no free throws to shoot), but next Thursday, Aug. 21, at

the end of Leo, on the cusp of Virgo, the most incredible physical

specimen ever to walk the earth will turn 50 years old. Even now,

save perhaps for a tiny white fringe in his beard, he doesn't look a

day older than the legend. He favors black, revealing garb -- usually

tank tops and tight-fitting pants -- and unfettered feet. Even on the

pavement of Manhattan he goes barefoot, donning shower clogs only on

the most demanding, formal occasions. The deep, resounding voice

(with the curious, contradictory little boy's occasional stutter) has

not risen so much as half an octave, and he is even trimmer than when

he played, 25 or 30 pounds down; but, more important, as far as he

knows, he has not shrunk a whit from the seven feet one and

one-sixteenth inches, which he says he is but which no one ever

believes. How's the weather up there?

He was, always, the Giant. But he was also the Monster. ''Nobody

loves Goliath,'' Alex Hannum, one of Wilt's coaches, once said. Yet

the benign irony of Chamberlain's middle-aging is that while he has

lost the villain's stigma, he yet retains the giant's stature. Wilt

is still the very personification of height, for good or for

caricature. Even now, 13 years after his career ended, 24 years after

he scored 100 points in an NBA game against the Knicks before 18,000

screaming fans at Madison Square Garden, grandfathers don't say to

tall boys: ''My, you're going to be a regular Ralph Sampson.'' Or ''.

. . a regular Manute Bol.'' They say, ''My, you're going to be

another Wilt the Stilt.'' If you have something to sell involving a

point you're trying to make about size or stature -- like a car or an

airplane seat or a brokerage house -- you still call Wilt Chamberlain

and have him represent your product because then people get the point

right away even if they never saw a basketball game or weren't even

born when Wilt Chamberlain was playing.

For all the times that Bill Russell trumped Chamberlain -- and

while he was at it, almost broke Wilt's heart -- for all his

championship rings, still, Russell would walk into a coffee shop

somewhere and little old ladies would come over and ask ''Mister

Chamberlain'' for his autograph. Years later, at the height of his

career, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar would suffer the same fate. But nobody

ever mistook Wilt for anybody else until, he reports proudly, the

last couple of years when, every now and then, people call him

''Magic.'' Magic Johnson is 23 years his junior.

But the tragedy to Chamberlain was that although he was probably

the greatest athletic construction ever formed of flesh and blood, a

natural who was big and strong and fast and agile, accomplished in

virtually every challenge he accepted -- for all that, he was never

allowed to win. If, by chance, he did win, it was dismissed because

he was the Monster. If he lost, it was his fault. He was a road

attraction, the guy to root against. And Wilt, baffled that his

bigness and bestness were the very cause of that disaffection, fought

back in the worst way, with more bigness and bestness. If the most

points would not win him love, then he would grab the most rebounds,

tally the most assists; or he would make the most money, eat the most

food, go to the most places, drive the fastest cars, sleep with the

most women.

As, through the ages, men who could pull off only one or two of

these feats found out, it doesn't necessarily assure satisfaction,

accumulation doesn't. Al Attles, an old friend and teammate, now

vice-president of the Golden State Warriors, says, ''I don't think

Wilt would ever admit this, but he would try to do things just to get

acceptance from other people. But people would never be happy with

what he did, and beneath that veneer, I knew how much it was hurting

him. He was so misunderstood. So few people took the time to try and

appreciate Wilt. Most everybody just assumed that a great player

couldn't possibly also be a great person.''

Chamberlain was on holiday on the Adriatic in the summer of '74

when it occurred to him that he would finally hang it up. It wasn't

anything dramatic that made him quit. Good Lord, he could sure still

play. (Twelve years later, just this past April, the New Jersey Nets

reportedly offered him nearly half a million dollars to play out the

last couple weeks of the NBA season -- and he was 49 by then.) He

didn't have any special new career plans back in '74 either. No,

there was just one thing: ''The more I thought about it, the more I

realized that there was always so much more pain to my losing than

there ever was to gain by my winning.''

And so he walked away. Not long after, he published his

autobiography, and in it he unequivocally declared that his happiest

year had been the one with the Harlem Globetrotters, the one when

nobody asked him to break any records, but just to go out there, put

his rubber bands on his wrists like always, have fun and help other

people enjoy themselves.

Is that year with the Globies still your happiest? Wilt drew his

bare feet across the tiles. Los Angeles stretched out below him, his

great house soaring above. ''Oh, no, my man,'' he said with a big

smile. ''There's been 10 great years since then. There's been 10

straight happier years.''

No one comprehends better than Wilt himself that he had to lose

all those many times to satisfy other people, so that then, after

basketball, he could live happily ever after.

Wilt is aiming his white Ferrari down the freeway at a

considerable speed. ''I've never had any bad habits for spending

money except on cars,'' he says. He has a classic Bentley -- baby

blue -- back in the garage, and is involved, in England, in a project

to build a $400,000 custom sports car that will be ready soon,

known as the Chamberlain Searcher I. Peter Bohanna, an automotive

designer who worked on special effects for James Bond films, is

personally developing the Chamberlain. There will be a prototype mold

so that 20 copies can be run off, should you want to order one.

The white Ferrari is something like 8 1/2 centimeters from road to

roof, but Wilt fits in comfortably, a revelation that infuriates

littler people. These people hate to think that big people can ever

be comfortable, especially in a) cars and b) beds. Little people are

always asking Wilt how he sleeps, and they are mightily upset to

learn that he sleeps like a baby. Little people forget that everybody

starts off their existence sleeping all tucked up, and it's not

really all that hard for tall people to revert to that when a bed is

too short.

But then, little people no longer aggravate Wilt. After 50 years

of this, he just laughs -- down -- at them. ''I know that,

subconsciously, little people feel anybody tall has enough going for

him, and so there's envy and they try to belittle your height,'' Wilt

explains. ''People will never come up to a stranger and say, 'Gee,

you're small,' or 'How much do you weigh, fatso,' but nobody ever

minds asking anybody tall how tall they are. It doesn't make any

difference what you tell them, either, because if you're tall, no

matter what you answer, little people will say, 'Oh no, you're taller

than that.' You think I don't know how tall I am, and they do? But it

doesn't matter. I could say, 'Oh, I'm ten-foot-three and the guy

would say, 'Oh, no, you're taller than that.' ''

Little people, Wilt says, get it all wrong even when they're

trying to be polite. For example, whenever he gets on an airplane,

the top of the door is about at his belt level, but the stewardess

will always say, ''Don't forget to duck.'' Wilt shakes his head.

''What am I going to do?'' he asks. ''Bump into the door with my

stomach?'' In a world where doors and doorknobs, mirrors, shower

heads and everything else is built for little people, big people

learn to duck instinctively all the time. Wilt laughs at the fact

that when little friends spend time with him, after a while they all

start to duck, subconsciously, just from being around him. Actually,

it is little people who bump their heads most, because they're not

used to the occasional low-hanging thing. Little people are the ones

stewardesses ought to really worry about.

''I wouldn't say it's always been the easiest thing being seven

feet and ; black, but never once in my life did I ever feel like I

was a misfit,'' Chamberlain explains. ''Athletics probably had a lot

to do with that.'' Still, it is not just that he is extremely tall.

Wilt's is a phenomenal, overwhelming presence. Tom LaGarde, who tops

out at a mere 6 ft. 10 in., was a member of the 1976 U.S. Olympic

team. He remembers being on court before a game in Montreal when Wilt

strolled into the arena. Several people on the floor were as tall as

Wilt, or nearly so. It didn't matter. Everything just stopped.

Everyone just stared. Bob Lanier, 6 ft. 10 in., 270, one of the

hugest men anywhere, filled out a questionnaire recently that asked

him to cite the most memorable moment in his entire athletic career.

Lanier wrote: ''When Wilt Chamberlain lifted me up and moved me like

a coffee cup so he could get a favorable position.''

No matter how well one knows Wilt and, presumably, gets used to

him, no one is ever able to consciously accept his majesty. Wilt's

oldest friend, since third grade, is Vince Miller, a schoolteacher in

Philadelphia, a man of better than average height himself. Yet, no

matter how many times they play each other in tennis, Miller never

fails to lob too short when Chamberlain comes to the net, and as the

overhead comes screaming back, there is Miller shouting, ''I just

never remember how tall you really are.''

And how strong was he exactly? How fast? How high could he jump?

How long? Who knows? By now, the myths of what Chamberlain did at his

leisure (or might have done, if he hadn't been concentrating on

basketball) compete in memory all too much with whatever did happen.

Wilt is not averse to embellishing his own legend here and there,

either. At the moment, Lynda Huey, an old friend, a travel agent by

trade, a track nut by passion, is trying to get Wilt to enter the

World Veterans Championships in track and field (50-year-old

division) next year in Melbourne. ''Wilt will rewrite all the record

books,'' Huey says blithely.

And what event would you enter, Wilt? The discus, the 200, the

high jump? ''Almost anything,'' he shrugs. These days, for typical

daily amusement he competes (against others or himself) in the

following activities: basketball, racquetball, volleyball, tennis,

polo (yes, the kind with horses), rowing single sculls, swimming,

running races, lifting weights, hurling objects, performing the

martial arts, aerobics and walking long distances. He still holds his

own in scrimmages with current NBA players. The Nets' offer, while

obviously of considerable publicity value to a team somewhere out in

the suburbs that nobody knows exists, was perfectly legitimate. Wilt

finally turned it down only because he was afraid he would disappoint

people, afraid that even though he was sure he would acquit himself

proudly, playing in the NBA in his 50th year, nothing he could do

would be enough to satisfy expectations. He would lose again.

But maybe, Wilt, maybe you could shoot free throws better now?

Wilt shakes his head in tolerant chagrin, suffering another fool as

best he could. No matter what, he is never going to escape from free

throws. He could always score and rebound and run and jump and arm

wrestle and throw shot puts and god knows what all, but he couldn't

shoot free throws. It just goes to show you: Everybody really is

human. Nobody Can Do It All. In fact, one theory was that deep in his

soul, Chamberlain wanted to miss free throws so that people would

see, at last, that he had human limitations, too. Certainly it was

psychological -- ''totally, a head trip,'' he says -- because early

in his basketball life he did quite well shooting free throws. That

night at Madison Square Garden, when 50,000 fans jammed in to see him

score his 100, he went 28 for 32 at the line.

Countless suggestions were proffered. He shot underhanded,

one-handed, two- handed, from the side of the circle, from well

behind the line. Hannum suggested to Wilt that he shoot his famous

fadeaway as a foul shot. Hannum checked the rule book and said he

found that you had to be behind the line only when you shot, so he

proposed that Wilt start near the basket and fade back to the line.

Wilt thought the idea had merit, too, but he was just too scared to

try the scheme and bring even more attention to his one great

failing. And so he never did learn to shoot free throws as well as a

man as he did as a boy. It was a very peculiar Achilles' heel.

When Wilt was negotiating to fight Muhammad Ali in 1971, his own

father, who was 5 ft. 8 3/4 in. and a boxing fan, said, ''You'd be

better off if you gave back those gloves right now and went down to

the gym and worked on foul shots.''

For whatever reason, Chamberlain has always been a loner. His

favorite sport to this day remains track and field, an individual

game -- not basketball, with its team clutter. His fondest early

recollections in sports are of his going over to a field at the

Philadelphia Rapid Transport Company and throwing the shot. It was

something he enjoyed the most because he could do it all by himself.

Perhaps he became a loner simply because he was so much bigger and

stronger than everyone else. It is also true that he sucked his thumb

until he was in junior high. But, he says, ''you've got to like

yourself more to be a loner,'' and anyway, Wilt never has lacked for

friends.

His closest friends -- most of whom have always called him Dipper

or Dippy -- go back 20 years or more; his advisers, as well, have

been tight with him for decades. Chamberlain also numbers among his

buddies women who were once lovers -- whom he always describes, most

properly, as ''young ladies'' -- but for all his affairs there has

been little real romance, and never once has he come close to getting

married.

His reputation precedes him. During a time when Groucho Marx was a

neighbor, Groucho would suddenly appear at Wilt's house, cigar in

tow, walking in his crouch, the whole bit, come in, smirk, say only,

''Where're the girls? Where're the girls?'' and then slink away. And,

like free throws, the subject of Chamberlain's bachelorhood forever

clings to him. ''I just don't think I'm the sort of person who could

be with one soul,'' he explains. ''I'm too individualistic . . . and

too gregarious with the young ladies. And I'll tell you this, too, my

man: I have no need to raise any little Wilties. Not any --

especially in a world where overpopulation is our biggest problem.''

In many respects, Wilt, even at 50, looms as the perpetual

adolescent -- playing games by day, chasing broads by night, no

family responsibilities, plenty of money. One could even say he is

narcissistic. But it is not quite as simple as that. All along, as

his old teammate and friend Tom Meschery says, ''what Wilt was on the

outside identified him as a person. It's that way with many athletes,

but it's all the more so with Wilt because there was more on the

outside of him than anybody else.''

The well-adjusted athlete can, in effect, grow beyond his body

when the time for games is over. The weak ones have trouble. ''Many

athletes hang on because they're afraid of the real world,'' Wilt

says. ''They miss the limelight, the young ladies on the road. So

maybe I was lucky. The fans were so fickle with me. I had to learn

that self-acclaim is more important than what anybody else says.'' In

all his years in the NBA, he never once gave a young lady a ticket to

one of his games.

Still, unlike other athletes who could retire from sports,

Chamberlain could not retire from his body. It's not unlike the

famous story told of Winston Churchill, when the lady next to him at

dinner said, ''Why, Mr. Churchill, you're drunk.'' And he replied,

''Yes, madam, but when I awake tomorrow I will no longer be drunk,

but you will still be ugly.'' A lot of athletes will wake up some

tomorrow, and they won't be athletes anymore; they'll be insurance

salesmen or restaurant owners or TV color men. But it didn't matter

when Chamberlain gave up basketball -- that was nearly coincidental

-- for he would forever be one of the most imposing creatures in the

world, never able to retire from his body.

Not that he minds. ''I have to exercise three, four hours a day,''

he says. ''If I miss just one day, my body tells me. I don't sleep as

well. I get irritable. But then, maybe it's not so bad for me to

depend on something. Most people depend on someone. Besides, I work

hard at keeping my body in shape, because that's been my

money-maker, you understand. Most of the commercials that I still get

wouldn't have been mine if I had gotten fat. You see, my man, it's

still important that I look like I could do it.''

And, just as he turned down the Nets' six-figure offer for a few

weeks' work, so does Wilt pick and choose his jobs around the globe.

He remains very much a worldwide phenomenon, and, indeed, almost

wherever Wilt goes he is sure to meet someone who tells him how he

was personally there in the Garden, along with 475,000 others, SRO,

the night Chamberlain went for his 100. When Wilt does agree to work,

he is most often involved with the movies -- as a budding producer or

as an actor of sorts in the latest of the Conan films -- or in

commercials, for the variegated likes of Drexel Burnham, Foot Locker

and Le Tigre. He can be most discriminating, for few other athletes

ever invested so wisely. Chamberlain made money in traditional areas,

such as stocks and real estate, but also at his famous Harlem

nightclub, Smalls Paradise, and in something as risky as broodmares.

His house and the Bel Air hilltop it stands on may be worth eight

figures. He remains in demand. ''I'm still something of a

yardstick,'' he says. ''They say, 'When you're hot, you're hot.' But

I've always been hot.''

In his spare time, he works with young amateur athletes, often as

a patron. He has sponsored volleyball teams, the Big Dippers (men)

and the Little Dippers (women), and track clubs, Wilt's Wonder

Women and Wilt's A.C. (WHERE THERE'S A WILT, THERE'S A WAY, reads the

slogan on the team bus.) Currently, mid-Olympiad, he is concentrating

his support on a few individual comers, and dreaming dreams of 1988

in Seoul for himself, too.

It's amazing what it will do for a man when, suddenly, his size is

only an object of awe, and not an instrument of might. The worst

thing in sports is to be expected to win, and then to lose. The

second worst thing is to be expected to win, and then to win.

Nothing, of course, in all Wilt's life so affected him, so undid

him, as his rivalry with Russell. ''Wilt always played his best

against Russell,'' says Meschery, now a teacher living in Truckee,

Calif., ''but then it wasn't just that Russell's team always beat

Wilt's team. It was that somewhere along the way, Russell became the

intellectual, the sensitive man, the more human, the more humane. And

Wilt wasn't supposed to be any of those things. Well, that was a bad

rap. Wilt was every bit as good a person as Bill, and you could tell

how much he was hurt by the way he was perceived.''

The argument about who was more valuable, Chamberlain or Russell,

will never be resolved. The variables of team, the subtleties of

contribution, temperament, achievement and synthesis, are all too

complex -- even contradictory -- ever to satisfy truly dispassionate

observers. But whatever, Russell clearly enjoyed much the better

press and public image. Also, it seems, he got the best of Wilt

personally. When Russell quit, Chamberlain was shocked at the

criticism Russell suddenly unleashed about him.

''Friends had told me that Bill had been conning me,'' Chamberlain

says now. ''I didn't want to believe them. You want to believe that

somebody likes you for yourself. But now, I'm afraid that they were

more right than I was.''

For all the criticism he suffered, though, Wilt remains remarkably

charitable about the past. ''All that stuff is beyond me,'' he says.

''Besides, I think it's even better for a person to change his

attitudes. That's a bigger thing to do than to be born with all the

right ideas.'' Only Russell's old coach and mentor, Red Auerbach,

still draws Chamberlain's ire. He refers to Auerbach not by name, but

as ''that man I don't like'' -- but even then, he goes on to credit

Auerbach for his professional successes.

''Looking back, maybe I was luckier than Russell,'' Wilt says.

''Working with so many coaches was probably more character-building

for me, as opposed to Russell, who had only one coach, that man I

don't like.

''I know this, my man: It took a lot for me to go out there year

after year, being blamed for the loss. I'd be in a crowd somewhere in

the middle of the summer, and someone would holler, 'Hey, Wilt the

Stilt, where's Bill Russell?' But after the Celtics would beat us,

I'd always make it a point to go into their locker room -- and maybe

those losses were good for my life. Everybody would like to have a

few more rings, but I wouldn't trade the experiences I had. If you

win like that, like the Celtics did, year after year, if you win

everything when you're a young man, then you expect to win everything

for the rest of your life.''

Curiously, while everything about the physical Chamberlain is in

the extreme, he is a man of moderate instincts. He even chose to

support Richard Nixon instead of liberal Democrats. His upbringing in

Philadelphia was stable and middle class. He was raised in a large

family by two southern parents who ''never stressed anybody's race or

religion.'' His neighborhood in west Philly was mixed, his closest

neighbor a white numbers banker. Overbrook High was largely Jewish

at the time, and then he went to the University of Kansas, which put

him in touch with middle America, and the Globies, which introduced

him to the world. Wilt possesses a perspective that is more global

than that of most Americans, let alone most Americans who grew up in

the parochial world of locker rooms.

''Look, my man, I'm proud to be black, but I'm even more proud of

being an American, and I'm proudest of all of being a member of the

human race,'' Wilt says. ''I know some of my brothers in the 'to (the

ghetto) won't appreciate me saying this, but, all things considered,

I think America's dealt with the racial situation as well as we could

have. You have to look at it in comparison with similar problems in

the rest of the world -- in Ireland or India, wherever. I've never

allowed bigotry to make me bitter, you understand, and I've seen an

incredible change for good in my lifetime.

''I feel so strongly about here, about California being the Mecca,

the melting pot of today, the hope. It all works so well here, all

types of people. But I also know I can be naive, because I want it to

work so much. And I always know the Birchers and the KKK are never

far away. But we're getting there, you understand.

''And then we get hung up on the wrong things. I don't find it

shocking that if 90 percent of the people are white, then more of the

kids identify with Larry Bird than some black player. So what?

Physiologically, it's apparent that blacks are better built to handle

the game of basketball. We're quicker. We can jump. Whatever the

reason: genes, environmental conditioning -- who knows? It's like the

little black kid who says, 'Mommy, why do I have curly hair?' And she

says, 'Well, son, you have kinky hair to keep the tropical sun from

baking your brain.' And the kid says, 'But, Mommy, I live in

Cleveland and it's 22 degrees out.' 'I'm not the Maker. I don't know

why.'

''But these kids today, they've got no concept of history. They're

always coming up to me and saying, hey, Wilt, aren't the Celtics

racist? And I say, look, that man I don't like is still running that

team, but he was the first coach to play a black, and the first to

start five blacks, and the first man to hire a black coach. Now all

of a sudden he's a racist?

''Or these kids, they're trying to tell me the players today are

better. Let me tell you, my man, that I played in the golden age of

basketball. They say, look at the shooting percentages today. Are you

telling me any of these guys today can shoot better than Jerry West

or Bill Sharman? Well, they can't. One game I saw on my dish this

year, and I counted, and the two teams shot 57 layups. In one game. I

guarantee you, nobody ever shot 57 layups in a week of games I played

in. It's a good game now, you understand, but it's a different game.

They're flashier. They have more flair, but they're not necessarily

any better. And hell, Elgin was doing all that stuff 30 years ago.''

Wilt leaned back in his chair then, stretching out to his full 7

ft.1 1/16 in.(although he is, of course, much taller than that) and

he spoke about his own game. While with the Lakers in 1969, he tore a

tendon in his right knee, and while he was recuperating, running on

the beach, he discovered volleyball. Periodically since then there

has been talk that Chamberlain wanted to play on a U.S. Olympic

volleyball team, and while he still en- tertains such thoughts, now

he is also thinking seriously about trying out in '88, when he would

be a growing boy of 52, for the discus or the U.S. basketball team.

His past professionalism might well not be an obstacle. Pro

soccer and ice hockey players participated in the 1984 Games, and the

International Olympic Committee is now considering a revision of

the rule governing eligibility, which could open the door for any

athlete to compete.

Wilt would dearly love the opportunity. ''Of course, maybe I'd get

thrown out of the Hall of Fame if I messed up,'' he says. Or maybe

they would build a new wing for him if he sank a couple of clutch

free throws against the Soviets. He chuckled at that thought, and

scratched at the patio with his bare feet. The young lady he was with

looked at him with even more fascination. One minute, he was talking

about playing games in the deep past before she was even born, and

in the next, he was talking about playing games in the years ahead,

with people even younger than she.

One of the reasons Chamberlain likes to travel the world is that

it allows him to be even more content when he gets back to his castle

on the hill. It is totally his domain. Time does not operate here as

it does outside the gates, for Wilt remains the most nocturnal of

men; often, he will not call it a day before the sun comes up. Apart

from the hours he sets aside for his exercise, there is no pattern to

his existence. He does not even live a diurnal life as we know it. He

will, for example, go on a complete fast, eat nothing at all for

three days, and then suddenly, at 4:30 in the morning, devour five

greasy pork chops. He has driven across the country -- the whole

United States -- on the spur of the moment. He is as independent as

anyone in the world.

His house is as unique as he is, like a great cloak that surrounds

him. Wilt conceived the house and helped design it -- and it was

completed in 1971, during the time he was leading the Lakers to their

record 33 straight wins. At its highest point, the mansion reaches 58

feet. The ceilings are cathedral, and much of the glass is stained.

''Everywhere I've been in the world, the prettiest things are the

churches,'' Wilt says. There is not a right angle in the place. The

front door is a 2,200-pound pivot. There is a huge round table, a

Jacuzzi and sauna, a weight room, a pool room, a room that is

entirely a bed, and so forth. And a moat surrounds much of the house.

On the next rise over, but down from Wilt's mansion, lives Farrah

Fawcett. The rest of the City of Angels is below that.

All the doors are high so that he never has to duck, but there are

only two other concessions to Chamberlain's height: one large chair

downstairs, and a master bathroom with the toilet and shower head set

high. From his bed, Wilt can push a button and fill a sunken bath

at the other end of the room. He can push another button and roll the

roof back, ''so I can get my tan in bed.'' Except for the young

ladies who pass through, and friends who stay over, he is alone, save

for two jet-black cats, whose names are Zip and Zap. ''At last,'' Al

Attles says, ''he is so secure, so at peace with himself.''

An eclectic collection of mostly modern art decorates the halls,

but in all the house there are only two trophies. One is a huge

eight-foot carving that the late Eddie Gottlieb, the Mogul, Wilt's

friend and first NBA owner in Philadelphia, presented to him once for

something or other that Wilt can't recall anymore; the other, on his

bureau, is his citation of membership in the Hall of Fame. ''I gave

all the other stuff away,'' he says. ''It makes other people

happier.'' Attles, who was Philadelphia's second-leading scorer with

17 points the night Wilt tossed in his 100 before 1,872,000 paid at

Madison Square Garden, has the ball from that game.

Downstairs, in the kitchen, lies a copy of The New York Times of

Aug. 21, 1936, the day Chamberlain was born. An old friend had just

sent it to him as an early birthday present. The Spanish civil war

was the lead story; Alf Landon's campaign was in high gear in Omaha;

Trotsky was on the run from Stalin's Russia. And Jesse Owens was on

his way back to America, to triumph and segregation, after starring

in the Olympic Games of Berlin.

Fifty years, someone mused.

''Well, it takes awhile, you understand,'' Wilt replied. ''The

first time I was in Russia, they'd give me the best caviar, and I'd

dump it and ask, 'Hey, where're the hot dogs?' Basketball inhibited

me. It took me awhile to find out it's not all bouncy, bouncy,

bouncy.'' By now, he just thanks the people who tell him how proud

they were to have been there in Madison Square Garden the night he

got his 100.

Curiously, Wilt Chamberlain himself was in Hershey, Pa., that

evening, because that's where the Knicks and Warriors played before

4,124 fans when he got his 100.

He laughs and strides across the sunken living room. There he is:

black on black, the beard, the tank top, the skin-tight pants, the

bare feet, this great human edifice that hardly seems touched by the

years. But something seems to be missing. What is it? What's wrong

with this picture?

Suddenly -- yes. The rubber bands. Or rather: There aren't any

rubber bands. Chamberlain always wore rubber bands around his

wrists. It was his signature as a player, something he had started

as a kid, to make sure he always had extras to hold up his socks on

his long, skinny legs. And then when his legs got fuller and

stronger, he kept wearing the rubber bands, just for effect. And even

when he finished playing basketball, he still wore rubber bands.

Where are the rubber bands, Wilt?

''I kept wearing them because it reminded me of who I was, where I

came from,'' he says. ''Then suddenly, about two years ago, I felt

that I just didn't need that reminder anymore. So I took off the

rubber bands.'' He hasn't worn any since that day.

Wilt is strictly on his own now. The Giant is 50 years old, but

the Monster didn't live that long. END

Photo(s):

BRIAN LANKER NO CAPTION

AP Chamberlain'sseason with the Globetrotters, in 1958-59, was his happiest in basketball.

AP Everyone saw Wilt's 100 that night in '62.

WALTER IOOSS JR. In 1968 -- and throughout his career -- Russell was the man Wilt was measured against.

NEIL LEIFER/LIFE Wilt never quite got a grip on his foul shooting.

DREXEL BURNHAM LAMBERT INCORPORATED He is still a hot ticket in the advertising game . . .

CAMPUS SPORTSWEAR CO. . . . where no one is better at making a point in a big way.

DIRK HALSTEAD/GAMMA-LIAISON Chamberlain dwarfed Arnold Schwarzenegger's Conan.

ANTHONY NESTE Patrick Ewing watched Chamberlain serve up volleyball tips at a clinic in New York.

DENNIS STEERS/VOLLEYBALL MONTHLY Wilt is formidable on all kinds of courts.

BRIAN LANKER On a hilltop in Los Angeles, Chamberlain built himselfthe house that includes the gym he uses to help maintain his extraordinary shape.

BRIAN LANKER Chamberlain, at 50, may have finally outgrown the role of the villain, but he's still ''bad.''