Eddie Durno - Basketball

Eddie Durno helped establish the University of Oregon’s basketball legacy and later developed a political career that reached the United States Congress.

Born in 1899, Durno grew up outside Albany, and served as an infantry sergeant during World War I. As a forward, he helped the Ducks win the Pacific Coast Conference title in 1919 and was named All-Conference along with teammate Hal Chapman. Durno, who also played football and baseball, earned that recognition the following two seasons and was named to the All-America team in 1921 by the Helms Foundation, which had created such a team the previous year.

Following graduation, Durno was a high school coach and then moved to Boston and earned a medical degree from Harvard. He became a physician in Boston until World War II. Durno served in the medical corps during the war and then returned to Oregon to establish a practice in Medford.

In 1958, Durno won election to the state senate and two years later was voted to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served just one term. He ran for the U.S. Senate in 1962, but lost and returned to Medford.

He died in 1976 at age 77.

Durno was inducted to the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1981 and the University of Oregon Athletics Hall of Fame in 1992.