Chandler was born to Frank Chandler and Vernie Threadgill, though he did not meet his father Frank until later in his life. He grew up in a family farm in Hanford, California, just south of Fresno, California. Chandler began playing basketball at the age of three years on a basket Chandler's grandfather, Cleotis, fixed on a tree. Chandler grew up doing farm work such as milking cows, slopping pigs, and cultivating crops. At the age of nine years, Chandler and his mother moved to San Bernardino, California; he was already nearly six feet tall. As a child, Chandler was teased because of his height; children on his school basketball team joked that he was older than he really was, and that he had been left back several times in school.