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Turns out the undefeated Carolina basketball team didn’t train in the mountains.
For years, the story went that the 1957 Tar Heels had met Wilt Chamberlain when Wilt “The Stilt” worked in the Catskills in the summer when he and other basketball stars played ball on Friday nights to entertain the hotel guests.
The docu-movie about those days in upstate New York played over the weekend at The Chelsea during the annual Jewish Film Festival for Chapel Hill’s arthouse theater. “The Catskills” was funny and nostalgic and captured the era when Jews weren’t welcome at the array of resorts, so they built their own hotels that got famous like Grossingers and Kutchers.
Wilt worked at Kutchers where he handed suitcases up through second floor windows instead of carrying them inside. At night, Chamberlain joined some other college players in games that drew big crowds. Rumor has it some Tar Heels were in those games.
Not true, says Joe Quigg, the center who made the two winning free throws in the third overtime to beat Wilt and Kansas, 54-53, for the national championship.
He was up there for several summers in high school and eventually joined by UNC teammates Bob Young, Tony Radovich and a few others. Quigg said they never actually worked out because they had jobs at the resorts, and that Coach Frank McGuire’s best friend and chief New York City scout Harry Gotkin set it all up.
“Frank didn’t have much to do with it,” said Quigg, who still works part-time as a dentist in the Fayetteville area. “Harry Gotkin introduced me to North Carolina. And that did it. When I first went up there, I was a senior in high school, and we worked putting mats out by the pool and as waiters in the dining room. Then playing ball at night.”
Quigg recalled dozens of summer resorts that all employed high school and college kids. “It was hard work, seven days a week,” he said. “You had to get up and be ready at 7:30. And then you worked 1-3 for lunch, got off at 3, and then back at 6:30 and till 9. So it was hard, but we made good money.”
The only time they saw Chamberlain play was in sport clips before movies in the theater. “He scared us to death,” Quigg said.
But he actually tipped away a pass to Wilt before Kansas could take a last shot to win, and the 32-0 Heels flew home to Raleigh-Durham Airport. Awaiting them was an estimated crowd of 10,000. The game was on TV back in North Carolina, and the players didn’t know it.
Of the two free throws he made to put the Tar Heels ahead for good at partisan Convention Hall in Kansas City, Quigg said the shots determined whether he would be a dentist back in New York or in North Carolina. “Thank goodness they went in,” said Dr. Quigg.
Featured image via Associated Press
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
