Abrahamson played in games for the U.S. National Handball Team in 1972 and 1976. He is also a member of the University of Oregon men’s basketball team.
PORTLAND, Ore. — Rick Abrahamson, a two-time Olympian on the handball team and former basketball player at the University of Oregon, will be inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame later this month.
Abrahamson grew up in a small town in southwestern Oregon. The son of a coach, his first hobbies were baseball and basketball. He completed his final two years of high school at McMinnville and was scheduled to play on the Linfield College basketball team. After a remarkable performance in a tournament his senior year, those plans changed.
“I got a scholarship offer from the University of Oregon Basketball at the last minute and I jumped at it. I really wanted to be a Duck,” Abrahamson said.
Abrahamson contributed to the University of Oregon basketball team his junior and senior years, averaging 10.5 points as a junior and 8.2 points as a senior.
After graduating in 1969, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. That’s when I discovered team handball as part of General William C. Westmoreland’s Army Champions program.
“He saw handball in Europe. Handball is played everywhere in Germany. He was there at a German military base and said, ‘You know, that’s a great sport to keep soldiers in shape.’ ,” Abrahamson said.
Westmoreland promoted the creation of an all-military Olympic handball team that aimed to compete in the 1972 Munich Olympics. Abrahamson was told he could try out for the team or be sent to Vietnam. Abrahamson tried out with about 75 other former college athletes for seven spots on the Olympic training team. He was one of the lucky seven chosen.
In preparation for Munich, the team headed to Europe to play against the best teams in the world.
“For our first six months, we would go over there and get beaten up, sometimes very well,” he recalled. “But we just kept getting better and better and improving, and by the time we got to Munich we were competing with the best Olympic teams and national teams in the world.”
Although the U.S. team didn’t win a medal at the Munich Games, they defeated Spain, one of the best teams in the world, and achieved the most improbable victory in Olympic history.
Abrahamson was also a member of the U.S. team that competed in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.
The two-time Olympian calls being inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame “a tremendous honor.”
“I’m really humbled to be a part of it,” he said. “I know my dad will be looking down. He was the coach, but he will be looking down with pride on October 29th.”
The 2024 Oregon Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be held on Tuesday, October 29th at the Patricia Riser Center for the Arts in Portland. KGW’s Orlando Sanchez and sportscaster Neil Everett will emcee the event.
