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There are times, though, when Chamberlain wishes he were a little less successful—and a lot less tall. A 7-ft. man walking down the street is the kind of oddity that children point at and drunks snarl at; he has been asked "How's the weather up there?" in a dozen languages, and people have been calling him "freak" to his face all his life. He even sticks out, drawing all eyes, on a court full of huge men. Says his friend Bill Russell: "Wilt is not only very famous; he's very obvious. He has a special problem. Mickey Mantle, or Roger Maris, or even Willie Mays, can walk into a room and leave it, and maybe nobody will notice them. Wilt can't."
At first Chamberlain would not admit that he really was 7 ft. tall (he used to claim that he was 6 ft. 11¾ in.), and even today he is wary and withdrawn with all but his closest friends. "It's not that I don't trust people," he says. "I do trust people—but it's impossible for me to hide. I can't just put on dark glasses. The only way I could get any privacy would be to cut off my legs."