Richard Boushka

Dick Boushka

Personal information
Born	(1934-07-29) July 29, 1934 Springfield, Illinois
Nationality	American
Listed height	6 ft 5 in (1.96 m)
Listed weight	209 lb (95 kg)
Career information
High school	Campion (Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin)
College	Saint Louis (1951–1955)
NBA draft	1955 / Round: 3 / Pick: 20th overall
Selected by the Minneapolis Lakers
Position	Forward
Career highlights and awards
Third-team All-American – AP (1955) 3× First-team All-MVC (1953–1955) 2× AAU All-American (1957, 1959) Saint Louis Billikens All Century Team
Medals Men's basketball Representing the United States Olympic Games 1956 Melbourne Team competition Pan American Games 1959 Chicago Team competition

Richard James "Dick" Boushka (born July 29, 1934) was an American basketball player who competed in the 1956 Summer Olympics. Born in Springfield, Illinois, Boushka played collegiately at Saint Louis University.

In addition to his play on the gold-medal winning 1956 American Olympic team, he was a member of the American team in the 1959 Pan American Games and was a standout player for the Wichita (Kansas) Vickers of the AAU. Boushka eventually became the president of team sponsor Vickers Petroleum.

Boushka was named to the Saint Louis Billikens All Century Team. He was on the team with other Saint Louis greats such as Jordair Jett, Anthony Bonner, and Larry Hughes.

Investments

After parimutuel gambling was legalized in Kansas in 1986, Boushka approached RD Hubbard with the idea of a greyhound track. The Los Angeles Times wrote that they planned on building a "combined horse-dog complex, and now Kansas has a $70-million facility [named The Woodlands], the two tracks sharing a joint parking lot." According to Hubbard, "if we didn't do what we did, the greyhounds and the horses would have wound up competing against one another in the same market. It was a better idea getting the two industries to work together." In Kansas City, they funded the construction and opening of The Woodlands racing park in 1989. Built to serve as both a greyhound track and later as a horse racing track, the venue was the first legal gambling outlet in the area since the 1930s, and in its second year attendance peaked at 1.7 million attendees.

External links

• Olympic profile