8.6 /10 1 Votes
4.7/5 Barnes & Noble | 4/5 Goodreads Originally published 2004 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Similar Wilt - 1962: The Night of 100 Po, Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich, I May Be Wrong but I Doubt It | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wilt: Larger Than Life (ISBN 1572439157) is a biography of deceased NBA basketball Hall-of-Famer Wilt Chamberlain, written by journalist Robert Cherry. The 416-page book was published in November 2004 by Triumph Books. The foreword is written by Jerry West, Chamberlain's teammate and friend on the Los Angeles Lakers. It is the only biography of Wilt Chamberlain to be released after his death.
The book chronologically spans the entire life of Wilt Chamberlain, starting with his roots in middle class Philadelphia, highlights his rise to young basketball prodigy in Overbrook high school and at Kansas University, follows his entire NBA career as member of the Philadelphia / San Francisco Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers and Lakers franchises and his successful business life afterwards up to his death. Cherry also gives room for the more colorful aspects of Chamberlain's private life, most prominently his notorious claim to have slept with 20,000 women.
In the final "Acknowledgements" chapter, Cherry gives credit to over 250 interview partners, and acknowledges Chamberlain's lawyer Sy Goldberg, his sister Barbara Lewis (née Chamberlain) and close personal friends Lynda Huey, Zelda Spoelstra, Sonny Hill and Bob Billings as main sources.
Reception
Booklist has been appreciative of the book. It calls it "a solid biography for any sports collection", "addresses the misconception [that Chamberlain was perennially called a loser]", and "also gives enough, but not too much, attention to Chamberlain's ill-considered, though possibly accurate, boast that he'd slept with some 20,000 women."