T O U R N E Y T O W N  ARCHIVES

This page is part of the Tourneytown.com archives and is no longer updated.

"Handshake" Hanson

Plenty of stories -- some true, some untrue -- celebrate the life and success of Blaine superstar By SCOTT SANDSBERRY YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC Richard Hanson the man was and is flesh and bone. "Handshake" Hanson the basketball player was part man, part myth. So says Hanson the man, who has heard and chuckled over some of the myriad tales of his feats as a Blaine High School player nearly four decades ago.

"Stories that probably started like the little fish and ended up being like the big fish," Hanson says. "They always add things."

Not that Hanson's exploits needed exaggerating. He was good. So good, in fact, that he was the runaway choice of a 20-member voting panel as the best player in the Class 1A state tournament's 54-year history.

He can't go to a basketball game anywhere in the state without having people approach him in the stands and tell him they remember watching him play for Blaine in the early 1960s or during his All-America career at Central Washington University.

If it's one or two people, he enjoys the moment, enjoys seeing the light in people's eyes when they're describing those memories of watching him play. "I really didn't know or think I'd ever have that kind of an impact on a person," he says.

But if it's a group of people surrounding him, he clams up. That's why he very rarely goes to state tournaments, because he knows it will be crowds around him, P.A. announcers will want to announce that he's in the building. And he's just not comfortable with that, especially if people are expecting him to speak.

"I'm not a speaker. I just like to be left alone," he says in a telephone interview. He pauses, then adds with mock indignation, "What are you calling me for?"

On the other end of the phone line, you can't see him grinning, but you know he is. That's the way he played the game -- with a smile on his face, enjoying himself, throwing in the occasional comic expression amid the more-than-occasional spectacular plays, even playing to the crowds that packed gyms to see this charismatic young man they'd heard so much about.

Funny, isn't it? The same man who shuns crowds was the boy who made them ooh and aah, made them laugh, brought them to their feet for standing ovations and left them admiring the unflagging sense of sportsmanship that earned him the nickname "the Senator," which didn't stick, and another one that did: "Handshake."

His coach at Blaine, Dennis Heinrick, hated either moniker. Thought it sounded like Hanson's ritual of shaking opponents' hands before every quarter -- which, in those days, always began with another center jump -- was an act. But those who knew him say Hanson's respectful nature was pure and genuine. "That was just his sportsmanship," recalls former teammate Don Ambrose. "That's how he was."

"He's one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet," says Tim Evans, who starred at Blaine a decade after Hanson. "I think anybody that knows him would tell you just exactly that."

And Hanson was also, of course, an amazing player.

"Richard," says Chris Hamilton, another former teammate, "was in a class of his own."

"He just had a presence to him," says Paul Madison, then a high schooler at nearby Ferndale and now the sports information director at Western Washington University. "He was something special, just in the way he conducted himself. And he was a scoring machine."

"He was the best player I've ever seen," says former Port Townsend coach Tim Black.

"The most dominating player who ever played in that tournament," says Dick Stark, a Bellingham radio announcer who has covered the tournament since 1962. "He was not only charismatic, but absolutely dominant. Ninety-eight rebounds (in the 1964 tournament) ... hell, that's 25 rebounds a game, and he's 6-foot-4!

"And he was very unselfish. He could have scored almost any time, seemed like -- left-handed, right-handed, inside, outside. And he was a cheerleader, clapping guys on the back, very demonstrative. The crowd was right there along with him."

The spectators in those crowds have told and retold the tales that have perpetuated -- or exaggerated, says Hanson -- the legend of "Handshake" Hanson.

There's the one about how, late in a close district game against perennial power Lynden, Hanson was at the foul line for a couple of critical free throws, with the throngs of Lynden fans raining boos and screaming to distract him. Hanson, so the popular version goes, put the ball on the floor and raised both hands in a keep-it-up gesture -- C'mon, you can be louder than THAT -- then coolly hit both free throws.

Didn't happen that way, according to the man. "The fish got bigger here," grins Hanson, who says he simply held the ball in one hand and waved to the crowd "to egg them on. ... And I didn't make the free throws. I missed both of them."

There was the story -- this one even Hanson can't deny -- about how, just one point shy of the tournament single-game scoring record of 47 late in a 1964 game, Hanson had the ball in a two-on-one break. But instead of going for the record, he passed to Ambrose for a layup. Why? Well, because Ambrose was open.

Then there's the story Blaine athletic director Gary Clausen, then a student a few years behind Hanson, tells about the Lynden player who drove the lane and found himself facing Hanson, a renowned shot-blocker. The player pump-faked once, twice ... and, clearly intimidated, went up feebly for the shot he expected to be swatted back into his face. Hanson, says Clausen, didn't even go up for the block. He just emitted a single shout, like a loud bark, in the shooter's face. The ball barely got two feet out of the cowed Lion's hands, and Hanson grabbed it.

"He was like the cat who liked to play with the mouse," Clausen says, then adds with a laugh, "He doesn't remember that, does he?"

No, Hanson doesn't. "That'd be a fish story to me," he says. "I don't remember that type of tactic. It would have more been me being real lazy and not going after the ball. I must have been tired."

Or just having fun. Hanson's coach, Heinrick, and teammates recall how Hanson would deliberately stumble or let himself appear off-balance so an opposing shooter would think he had an opening. Then Hanson would come from out of position to block the shot -- but not blast the ball out of bounds, just enough to retrieve it himself, a la Celtics great Bill Russell.

And if he didn't block the shot, he'd certainly rebound it. Though he wasn't particularly tall -- between 6-3 and 6-4 -- and not a tremendous leaper, Hanson had long arms and uncanny anticipation. He had 37 rebounds in a regular-season game, pulled down 31 in a tournament game and set a tournament rebounding record (his 98 in 1964) that still stands.

"When a person shot, he knew where the ball was going. He had a knack for it ... a nose for the ball," says former teammate Mike Dodd.

"And also -- and this was unusual for a guy his size at that time -- when we got in trouble, he handled the ball. When people tried to press, he was the one who would bring it up. And, in typical Richard fashion, he was a real team guy: He enjoyed an assist as well as he enjoyed scoring ... until it got to crunch time.

"He knew, we knew, the coaches knew: When we got in certain games, it was, 'Hey, Rich, you gotta score.' "

And he did. After averaging 18.2 points during the 1964 season, Hanson put up state-tournament numbers that look like misprints: 46 points and 30 rebounds ... 32 points and 30 rebounds ... 26 points and 25 rebounds.

He still holds the single-tournament scoring record of 135 points. His career tournament scoring record (241) wasn't broken until 29 years later. The player who broke it by just seven points, Jon Kincaid of Colfax, played 12 tournament games. Hanson set his record in eight.

That's one more reason why, 39 years after he last donned his Blaine High School uniform, the unassuming, unselfish, good-hearted, team-oriented fellow many recall simply as "Handshake" has been bestowed almost mythic status.

Not that it took time passage to do that.

"He was a legend," says WWU's Madison.

"He was a legend even when he was playing."

ADVERTISEMENT

© 2002-2008 All photos, content and design
are properties of the Yakima Herald-Republic.
 

For questions or additional information
about this site, send us feedback.

Privacy statement

 Tourney Titans
     Picking the Best Is Never Easy
     The Legend of 'Handshake' Hanson
     "It Was Just Fascinating to Watch Him"
     Bulldog Heaven in '77
     Best Players Stand the Test of Time
     Top 20 Players
     Top 20 Teams
     The Voting Panel
     Panelists Have Plenty to Say