Lew Beck - Basketball

Lew Beck carved out a remarkable career as an amateur athlete at Oregon State and beyond, including a spot on the 1948 U.S. Olympic team that won a gold medal. Born in Portland in 1922, Beck grew up as a standout player at the AAU level and found his way to Oregon State in 1942, where he played under legendary coach Slats Gill. He was a second-team pick for All-Pacific Coast Conference in 1943, before entering World War II as an engineer.

Following the war, Beck returned to Corvallis in 1946 and, along with teammates “Red” Rocha and Morrie Silver, helped lead the Beavers to a 28-5 record and trip to the 1947 NCAA Tournament, where they lost to Oklahoma 56-54 in the West Regional. Both Beck and Rocha were named All-Americans.

 After the ’47 season, Beck bypassed professional basketball in favor of a business position with the Phillips ’66 Oil company, and a key role with the its AAU basketball team, the Phillips ‘66ers.

The ‘66ers, often referred to as the Oilers, won their sixth-straight AAU national title in 1948, then played the University of Kentucky in the final game of the Olympic Qualifying tournament before 18,475 fans on March 31 at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The ‘66ers won 53-49, which made Oilers coach Omar Browning the Olympic head coach. Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp served as assistant.

Browning named his starting five players, which included Beck, to the U.S. team. Rupp took his starting five players as well during the era when only amateur athletes competed in the Olympics.

The US team went unbeaten in seven games and won the Gold Medal Game 65-21 over France. Beck, who started the final along with the four other ‘66ers, averaged 4.7 points per game in the tournament, including six in the final.

Beck died in 1970 of cancer at age 47. Each year, the OSU basketball program selects its top newcomer for the Lew Beck Memorial Award.

Beck was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1981 and the OSU Athletics Hall of Fame in 1988.