One October day 60 years ago, a man named Tom Clausen happened to see Wilt Chamberlain emerge from a restaurant. Which is not surprising, given that Wilt was (shall we say) a man of enormous appetites.

The greater surprise was that the restaurant was in Lititz.

Wilt and his Philadelphia Warriors teammates were in town for an exhibition game that night — Oct. 16, 1961 — against the New York Knicks at Warwick High School, a game the Warriors won 122-106. And Clausen, a lifelong Lititz resident, was among the 900 spectators looking on, as Wilt scored a very Wiltian 43, heralding what might have been the most incredible of his 14 NBA seasons.

“Warriors Rally to Dump Knicks, 122-106,” read the headline on a nine-paragraph account of the game by Intelligencer Journal sportswriter Pete Busser the next morning. (Right beneath it was a recap of a Hempfield-Cocalico JV football game.)

There was also a column by Intell Sports editor Jim Riley (“Rookie Coaches Agree On Professional Court Sport”), in which he spoke with the respective bosses, the Warriors’ Frank McGuire and the Knicks’ Eddie Donovan, about their transition from college to the pro ranks.

(For better or worse, you do not see headlines like that anymore.)

New Era sportswriter Bill Carroll likewise checked in with McGuire, who said Chamberlain, then entering his third season, “can do more than any player I’ve ever seen” and added:

“He’s the greatest. People think he loafs. He doesn’t. He’s just tired. A fan looks up and sees him jogging downcourt and thinks he’s loafing. The fan forgets that Wilt plays nearly every minute of every game. He’s hustled all the way for me.”

With the 60th anniversary of that game just days away, it boggles the mind that the NBA would sign off on playing in a tiny gym in Amish Country, given the worldwide appeal the league now enjoys. But it’s important to remember that the NBA at that point was entering just its 15th season. Teams were so starved for attention that they would play just about anywhere, and in fact the Warriors had played exhibitions at Warwick the two previous seasons as well.

The first, on Oct. 15, 1959, saw the Minneapolis Lakers nip Philadelphia, 120-119, behind Elgin Baylor’s 47-point explosion. Wilt, who had 25 points and 22 rebounds in that loss, racked up 59 points the following year at Warwick — on Oct. 20, 1960, to be exact — when Philadelphia beat the Syracuse Nationals (forerunner of the 76ers), 150-128.

Further proof of the NBA’s willingness to light out for the territories came during the 1961-62 regular season, when Chamberlain poured in 100 points against those very same Knicks in Hershey. That output, which came on March 2, 1962, was part of a season in which Wilt averaged 50.4 points and 25.7 rebounds a game. And about McGuire’s claim that Wilt played nearly every minute — that was borne out by the fact that he averaged 48.5 a game that year, in a sport where the games are 48 minutes long.

That’s one of the many records Wilt still holds, 48 years after he played his last game and 22 after his death, on Oct. 12, 1999, at the age of 63. And the 73-year-old Clausen, a longtime teacher, coach and community fixture, can confirm that the Big Dipper did in fact cast an enormous shadow.

He just happened to be walking along Broad Street that day in October 1961 when he saw a large Black man emerge from Bingeman’s Restaurant (“Bingy’s,” to the locals), which sat next door to the Parkview Hotel, across the street from Lititz Springs Park.

“I look,” Clausen said, “and it’s him.”

Clausen, then 13 and a budding player, didn’t approach Wilt for an autograph, something else that’s hard to picture today. Nor does Clausen remember much about the game itself.

“I was just excited to go,” he said. “I can’t say what the buzz was. … It was entertaining because you watched pros play on a high school floor. I was too young to imagine the magnitude of it.”

The Warriors moved to San Francisco the following season, where they remain. Wilt returned to his hometown of Philadelphia when the Sixers acquired him in January 1965, then forced a trade to the Lakers in ‘68. His last season was 1972-73, which ended with Los Angeles falling in the Finals to the Knicks, in five games.

Retired sportswriter Tom Callahan wrote in his recent book “Gods at Play” that the morning of the final game, Wilt ducked his head into a lounge in the L.A. Forum where some scribes had gathered and said, “Anyone who owes me money, have it here tonight” — the inescapable conclusion being that he had checked out on the series, and the season.

Suffice it to say, then, that Chamberlain’s legacy is a complicated one. For all his talent and all his records, he won only two titles.

A couple more matters. The building that housed Bingeman’s is no longer standing. Warwick moved into a new gym, just down the hallway from the old one, in 1991. The Warriors’ former digs, so comfortable and cozy that you half-expect to see Norman Dale come walking in at any moment, are still intact, still useful.

A recent weekday afternoon found the non-football-playing members of the team working out in there. None of their coaches are old enough to remember when Wilt came to town, but they can recall the night the local fans packed the place for a visit by a Sam Bowie-led Lebanon team in the late ‘70s. It was so crowded, in fact, that Bowie’s mom couldn’t get in. The Cedars’ coach at the time, Chic Hess, refused to take the court until room was made for her, and lo and behold, it was.

As for Clausen, he spent 35 years as an elementary school teacher, and after retirement served as a substitute for 14 more. He stepped aside in March 2020, when COVID hit.

“I love teaching,” he said.

Full disclosure: He was once a co-worker of my wife’s; she has always spoken highly of his classroom work, and rest assured that she’s a tough grader. Moreover, I have seen for myself how vital he is to the school’s athletic machinery. Over the last half-century he has coached, served as game manager for all manner of events, worked the scoreboard at basketball games, even officiated track and field. 

Every community has people like this — people who know everybody, do everything and care nothing about getting any credit. So while Clausen can say that Wilt once loomed large in the streets of Lititz, in many ways Clausen himself always has.