Dad and the number 32 go together like peanut butter and chocolate. He wore it in the pros, the ABA, in college and high school. And by the time I was old enough to know that was his number, it became my good luck number, too.

Then there’s Wilt — my Dad’s teammate. He made a point of wearing the “unlucky” number 13, once saying it was lucky for him…and unlucky for his opponents.

That much I knew to be true.

After the fire, burnt-smelling plastic bins held fragments of these legacies I’m still trying to piece together without making it a full-time job.

It was quite an undertaking to wash every surviving jersey, lay them in the sun, and fold them into tissue. Preserve what was left of those stories. I believe everything, even inanimate objects, has a story to tell. And the joy of finding a jersey that’s different from all the others only adds to the details.

The blue jersey had USA stitched across the chest, but instead of the number 32, it was the unlucky number 13.

Dad didn’t remember wearing it. He never played in the Olympics. And yet… here it was. Wilt’s number.

The Mystery Deepens

It must be Wilt’s jersey, right? Maybe Dad brought it home by mistake—they were always bringing home the wrong jerseys. Getting them mixed up in the wash. But when I put it on, it fit me a little too well. No way I could’ve fit into something made for Wilt (even with those tighty micro shorts).

Still, that jersey survived the fire. It stuck around. And each time I pull it out to honor Wilt—like on Wilt Chamberlain Day—I remember it holds more than history. It holds a mystery.

But there were all those photos, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, letters—you name it. As I write my blogs, I try to group like-minded things together. It’s a never-ending process because every blog becomes a search and rescue kind of mission.

Sometimes, as I’m looking for something, I pull together things that look like they go together, and put them aside and forget about them.

But this pairing of photos kept calling me to look at them again.

But then I’d see how young Dad looked, and I’d chalk it off to some high school thing, putting them aside again.

I needed to go through Grandma’s scrapbooks, and in one of them I found a random photo of Dad with a basketball team standing in front of the U.S. Naval Academy Field House.

I chalked it up to another forgotten high school moment in New York. I didn’t connect that he was in Annapolis, Maryland. When would he have been there?

I’d pass the photos that made no sense, but this time, I looked closely to find Dad. There he was. And then I looked again. He wore the number 13.

But it wasn’t high school—it was the summer of 1965 after his senior year at Carolina. He was a summer away from going pro, already on the cusp of a whole new life.

Somehow, right before that next chapter began, he got engaged… and ended up in an unidentified basketball team photo wearing the number 13.

Clues to the 1965 Jersey Mystery

I returned to the black-and-white photos I suspected were from the 1965 games. 

One photo showed him mid-air in a shiny warm-up suit, dunking—his head hidden behind the net, no number visible.

Then another: Dad’s face hidden by the ball. But this time, there it was—the USA 13 jersey.

The gym had a few scattered onlookers. Too bare to be an All-Star Game—even back then, there would’ve been a real crowd.

So I turned to the photo of the USA team standing and sitting with players from CSSR (Czechoslovakia, I eventually realized). A gym with an elegant balcony—nothing like a traditional basketball arena, aside from the net and a few fuzzy details.

All of these photos weren’t souvenirs.

They were the missing puzzle pieces.

That jersey hadn’t just survived the fire.

It had survived time.

And in that moment, it clicked: this wasn’t Wilt’s jersey.

It was Dad’s—straight from 1965.

In another pile on my desk, I found a diploma tucked inside a blue plastic sleeve.

It read: FISU (International University Sports Federation) World Universiade Budapest.

And on its own line: kosárlabda—Hungarian for basketball. (My Hungarian sister-in-law would laugh that I didn’t just ask her.)

Turns out, it was the first time the United States ever played in the World University Games.

They hadn’t even changed the name yet.

When I showed Dad the photographs, we had one last mystery to solve. Who was who on that team? There’s no record online of who wore what number in that game.

Looking at the photos, Dad said, “There’s Buntin, but where’s Finkel? Finkel was on that team.”

He reasoned, maybe or by intuition after 60 years, that Buntin must have gotten hurt and Finkel came in to replace him.

However, the online roster doesn’t list Finkel, who wore the number 6.

Once we made that correction, Dad slipped into detective mode. Then he said,

“You know I have the gold medal on the shelf in my office. It’s really beautiful.”

He has the medal.

I have the jersey.

And what we’ve pieced together—after all these years—feels better than luck.

It feels like a legacy.

The Number Connects Us

Here’s what strikes me: Dad wore #13 in Budapest in 1965. Immediately after Budapest, Dad joined the Sixers and met Wilt at training camp.

And that freaky moment in history when Dad wore the number 13 would have been forever forgotten, rotting in my basement.

Had I not followed the strange desire to wash those fire-smelling jerseys—to hold them, to save them, to ask Dad to remember—I never would’ve pieced together what a bunch of forgotten photos were trying to say.

Training camp started early in those days. The Budapest games ended on August 30, 1965. So Dad came home and put on his 76ers number 32.

He put it behind him—the time he wore the number 13.

Wilt was the rightful heir to the good luck number 13, anyway.

That’s the part of the story we all know and love.

Two players, one number, both carrying the weight of proving that what others call “unlucky” can become your greatest strength.

Wilt didn’t just wear #13—he owned it. He made it legendary. He proved that luck isn’t about the number on your back, but about the work you put in and the people who believe in you.

Dad’s #13 jersey survived a fire, survived time, and survived my detective work to tell its story. Maybe that’s what good luck is—not avoiding the hard times, but enduring them and coming out with so much more than a beautiful medal or a surviving jersey. There’s a legacy that supports it.

Pass the Luck Forward

On this Wilt Chamberlain Day, let’s honor how Wilt transformed #13 from “unlucky” to legendary—by passing that luck forward.

The Wilt Chamberlain Memorial Fund provides scholarships to college-bound students in the Philadelphia area—young adults who, like Wilt, refuse to let their circumstances define their limits. These scholars are writing their own stories of turning challenge into championship.

And they do it in Wilt’s name.

Here’s today’s challenge:

Pass the Luck Forward

Donate $13, $32, or any number that’s lucky to you. Let’s turn this day into a movement—because good luck isn’t something we earn. It’s something we share.

As Wilt showed us — and as that #13 jersey reminded me —

The real magic isn’t in the number. It’s in what we dare to make of it.

My Dad wore that number once, just before life changed forever. He never asked for it. He didn’t even remember it. But in some mysterious, full-circle way, it found its way back to me.

And now, maybe…it finds its way to you.

So tell me:

What’s your lucky number?

Share it in the comments — and let’s celebrate the stories behind the numbers that matter to us.

More Wilt Stories from the Archive

If this story moved you, you’re in luck–there’s more to explore celebrating Wilt’s legacy: