The Greatest Upset Never Seen: Virginia, Chaminade, and the Game That Changed College Basketball

No one had really heard of Chaminade University—a tiny NAIA Catholic school in Honolulu with fewer than eight hundred undergraduates—until its basketball game against the University of Virginia on December 23, 1982. The Chaminade Silverswords defeated the Cavaliers, then the Division I, No. 1–ranked team in the nation, in what the Washington Post later called “the biggest upset in the history of college basketball.” Virginia was the most heralded team in the country, led by seven‑foot‑four‑inch, three‑time College Basketball Player of the Year Ralph Sampson. They had just been paid $50,000—more than double Chaminade’s annual basketball budget—to play an early season tournament in Tokyo and were making a “stopover” game in Hawaii on their way back to the mainland. The Silverswords, led by forward Tony Randolph, came back in the second half and won the game 77–72.

Chaminade’s incredible victory became known as the “Miracle on Ward Avenue” or simply “The Upset” in Hawaii and was featured in the national news. Never before in the history of college basketball had a school moved so dramatically and irretrievably into the nation’s consciousness. The Silverswords’ victory was more than just an upset; it was something considered impossible. And the team’s wins over major college programs continued in the ensuing years. Today Chaminade is still referred to as “The Giant Killers”—the school that beat Ralph Sampson and Virginia. 

The Greatest Upset Never Seen relives the 1982–83 season, when Chaminade put small‑college basketball and Hawaii on the national sports map.