Duane Alexander Swanson (August 23, 1913 – September 13, 2000) was an American basketball player who competed in the 1936 Summer Olympics, winning a gold medal. He also played professionally: In eleven games during the 1939–40 National Basketball League (NBL) season, he averaged 1.2 points per game for the Sheboygan Red Skins.[1] Duane Swanson's first name is often incorrectly attributed to be "George."[1][2][3]
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | August 23, 1913 Waterman, Illinois, U.S. | ||||||||||||||
| Died | September 13, 2000 (aged 87) Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee, U.S. | ||||||||||||||
| Listed height | 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) | ||||||||||||||
| Listed weight | 185 lb (84 kg) | ||||||||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||||||||
| High school | Waterman (Waterman, Illinois) | ||||||||||||||
| Position | Guard / forward | ||||||||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||||||||
| 1933–1934 | Columbia Studios | ||||||||||||||
| 1934–1935 | Joe E. Brown All-Stars | ||||||||||||||
| 1935–1937 | Universal Studios | ||||||||||||||
| 1937–1939 | MGM | ||||||||||||||
| 1940 | Sheboygan Red Skins | ||||||||||||||
Medals
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Biography
editSwanson grew up in Waterman, Illinois and attended Illinois Wesleyan University for a brief time before transferring to the University of Iowa.[3] He played on Iowa's freshman basketball team when he and a friend decided to drop out of school and hitchhike to Los Angeles, California to enroll at the University of Southern California (USC).[3] Iowa head coach Rollie Williams accused USC head coach Sam Barry of luring both players to California, which Barry denied.[2] Consequently, Barry rejected Swanson and his friend from playing for USC.[3] Instead, they signed a contract to play for Columbia Studios' team, which led to their first connections in the Hollywood industry.[3] In 1934, Swanson signed with Joe E. Brown's All-Stars team, whom he spent the 1934–35 season competing for.[2] In spring 1935, he played on an Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) All-Star team that toured Japan, playing in 15 games.[3]
In 1935–36, Swanson played for Universal Studios' basketball team.[2] This squad finished second in the national AAU tournament and first in the Olympic Trials, winning the right to represent the United States at the Berlin Olympics.[3] He ended up playing in three games during the Olympics and won a gold medal.[2]
Upon returning to the United States, Swanson stayed in Los Angeles a few more years competing for studio teams before returning to the Midwest in 1940.[3] He signed with the NBL's Sheboygan Red Skins to finish out the season, appearing in eleven games.[1][3] This stint would be his last as a professional basketball.[3] Swanson returned to Southern California and after serving in the United States Army during World War II, spent the next 25 years working in the entertainment industry.[3][4]
References
edit- ^ a b c "George (Duane) Swanson NBL stats". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 6, 2019.
- ^ a b c d e "Duane Swanson". Peach Basket Society. November 13, 2015. Retrieved June 6, 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Duane Swanson". Pro Basketball Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 6, 2019.
- ^ "Duane Swanson". Olympedia. Retrieved January 14, 2021.