It’s a tall order, but if anyone can tackle this burning question, it must be me. Warning: this muse contains a fire alarm!

I went to the premiere of GOLIATH: Life On An Epic Scale (the docuseries on the life of Wilt Chamberlain) and saw part two when they interviewed his former teammates, my Dad and Wali Jones. Plus, I’m a judge for the Wilt Chamberlain Memorial Fund scholarships.

I’m not exactly an insider since the Sixers won the 1967 world championship before I was born, and I never met any of those players except Wali when I interviewed his 106-year-old Pop this year.

Still, being the daughter of one of their teammates and seeing Dad as a coach, who led the Sixers to win the championship again in 1983, I’m close enough to the subject to have an opinion.

Along with my Dad, Chet Walker, Luke Jackson, Wali Jones, and Hal Greer were well-remembered teammates of Wilt’s from the 1967 Sixers world championship, and not to forget others who have stayed close over the years, Matt Guokos, Billy Melchionni, and Dave Gambee.

You don’t play on a team like that and not be forever changed. Being part of a team, a family, a community is far greater than going solo.

These legends worked together. They stood on one another’s shoulders to make one another epic.

Yes, Wilt was already as big as a VW beetle at 7’1″ and would still stand out in any crowd, even if he tried to hide behind sunglasses and a wig.

Wilt was tall as the documentary makers used the bible story to point out he was Goliath and Bill Russell was David.

But just as Jason Mosler from Religion of Sports stood before the screen prepared to start the movie, he said, “Support the young people,” and the fire alarm sounded.

We all sat in our seats, holding onto our popcorn and drinks, waiting to get on with the show.

Only a recorded voice came on telling us to evacuate the building immediately.

Does this happen in my life?–apparently.

Outside we got a chance to gather and talk to one another, not separated in our seats like we were inside.

I told the documentary maker that the film was so hot it caught the building on fire.

And then the field producer said, “It’s Wilt playing a practical joke.”

It was July 13th, Wilt’s number was 13, and City Representative Sheila Hess had declared the proclamation by the Philadelphia mayor that this day would henceforth be Wilt Chamberlain Day.

“Happy Wilt Chamberlain Day!”

And then I thought of Grandpa. He was the fire chief of NY; maybe he was in cahoots with Wilt up above.

But Grandpa wasn’t much of a practical joker (and it wasn’t Friday the 13th).

Does this plaque represent someone who would joke about a fire alarm?

If Grandpa had anything to do with the fire evacuation, it would have been to send us a larger-than-life message to cut this narrative down to size.

I wondered what that might be when only one fire truck pulled up (clearly, this was not the great fire we thought we had so valiantly escaped).

And then it hit me. Even one fire truck holds more than one fireman. A fireman always comes to fight a fire with others.

It takes a team.

Put any team members’ names where Dad’s name is; the Professional Basketball Writers Association selected the 1966-67 Philadelphia 76ers as the “Greatest Team in NBA History” in 1980.

So maybe Wilt (with Grandpa’s help) was trying to tell us something big here. Even though Wilt was larger than life, he still needed a great team of men to lift him even higher.

Wilt didn’t want to be known as Goliath, that’s how the media portrayed him, and that’s the message we all would have taken away from this docuseries had the fire alarm not gone off.

It reminded us of what was missing when we were sitting in our seats silently munching popcorn alone.

We need to be together again. Being part of a team–a community–something bigger than ourselves will make us all reach gigantic heights.

Together, we can stand taller than GOLIATH, as Wilt showed us when he came together with his teammates in 1967 to rewrite the script as they became the winners! Together we can “Support the young people!”

The exclamation point is the fire alarm sounding, but you already know that.

You won’t uncover photos like this every day.