Haldorson, Olympic Teammates Head To Basketball Hall
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| CU's Burdie Haldorson (back row, middle) and his 1960 US
Olympic teammates were a perfect 8-0 en route to the Gold Medal in
Rome. Photo Courtesy: USA Basketball |
The 2010 class will be inducted on August 13 in Springfield, Mass.
That 1960 team brought home the gold medal from Rome and also featured Jerry West (West Virginia), Oscar Robertson (Cincinnati), Jerry Lucas (Ohio State) and Walt Bellamy (Indiana). The 12-man squad cruised to an 8-0 record, the average winning margin a gaudy 42.4 points. The team beat Brazil, 90-63, to clinch the gold after disposing of the USSR (81-57) and host Italy (112-81) leading up to the gold medal contest.
The 1992 GÇ£Dream TeamGÇ¥ also will be inducted, along with Karl Malone and Scottie Pippen, among others. The 1960 and 1992 squads are generally considered the top two menGÇÖs basketball teams in U.S. Olympic history.
They will become the seventh and eighth teams that the Hall is inducting, the first Olympic ones, joining others that include the Harlem Globetrotters, the original Celtics, and the 1966 Texas Western team that shattered the race barrier when it beat Kentucky to win the NCAA title. Members of inducted teams go into the Hall as a full group, not as individuals.
GÇ£I donGÇÖt really know that much about it yet, but it will be a real honor to go into the Hall with the group of players that were on that team,GÇ¥ Haldorson said from his winter home in Scottsdale, Ariz.GÇ£There were 12 guys, and all but two of us went into the NBA. I was one of those two, and I had invitations to turn pro as well, but I was basically ending my career. Some of those guys were outright stars, and I really believe Jerry West and Oscar Robertson would be stars in the game today.GÇ¥
GÇ£IGÇÖve run into Oscar and Jerry a few times, but we all really went our own directions, so most of us havenGÇÖt really seen each other since we parted ways that summer,n++n++n++ he added. GÇ£WeGÇÖve never had a reunion so we kind of lost track of each other, but I canGÇÖt think of a better way to finally get us all together again.GÇ¥
Haldorson averaged 2.9 points and 4.3 rebounds per game on the GÇÖ60 team, and also won a gold medal as a member of the GÇÖ56 team, when he averaged 8.6 points per contest. With Haldorson as a team member, the United States went 16-0 in the two Olympic games.
Haldorson's uniform, No. 22, is one of just two retired basketball jerseys in CU history. He left quite an imprint in the school's basketball annals, and the 6-foot-7 Austin, Minn., native still holds four school rebounding records some five-plus decades after his CU playing days, including the most in a half (21), game (31) and season (346).
As a senior in 1954-55, he led the Buffs to the Big Seven Conference title by averaging 23.9 points per game, and was named a first-team All-American. CU eventually went on to finish third in the nation, losing in the Final Four to eventual champion San Francisco and the legendary Bill Russell.
He averaged 15.0 points and 9.5 rebounds for his CU career, and was the first of only eight players to this day to score at least 1,100 points and record 700 or more rebounds. He was inducted into CUGÇÖs Athletic Hall of Fame in the schoolGÇÖs second class in 1999; he previously had been inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, the first with ties to CUGÇÖs basketball programs, in 1977.
Haldorson went on to have a brilliant career in the National Industrial Basketball League as a member of the Phillips 66ers, the team entry for Phillips 66, who then hired him after his career. He then moved to Colorado Springs to form his own gas and oil distribution business.