Tribe of Vikings Hall of Fame
When discussing the most impactful people in the history of athletics at Augustana College, the name of Vince Lundeen will come up quickly. Included in his nearly 40-year legacy is the establishment of the very Hall of Fame into which he is inducted this evening.
In an Augustana career which spanned from 1941 to 1982 in various capacities both in and out of athletics, Lundeen served two stints as the school’s director of athletics totaling 17 years. In addition, over a period of 14 years, he totaled 34 seasons as a head coach for five different sports. He was named the first building director of Augustana’s state-of-the-art athletics complex completed in 1972, later dubbed the Roy J. Carver Physical Education Center, and was the driving force behind the creation of the Tribe of Vikings Hall of Fame (known as the Hall of Honor until 2002), which inducted its first class in 1977.
A native of Minneapolis, Minnesota and a 1940 graduate of the University of Minnesota, where he played football for the legendary Bernie Bierman and competed in track & field, Lundeen joined the faculty of Augustana in the winter of 1941. He taught for one term before accepting a football coaching job in Bartlesville, Oklahoma in the fall. In 1942, he joined the Navy, serving on the USS Alabama and USS Dayton and eventually achieving the rank of full lieutenant. After the war, he returned to the University of Minnesota and earned his master’s degree in education in 1946. He rejoined the Augustana faculty for the 1946-47 school year and would be a fixture in Rock Island for the next three and a half decades.
Lundeen took over as head coach of the Viking track & field program for the 1947 season and added head wrestling coaching duties the following year. In the fall of 1951, he was named to succeed Lee Brissman as director of athletics and was also tabbed as Augustana’s head football coach—all while still leading the track and wrestling programs.
After the 1953-54 academic year, Lundeen relinquished track and wrestling head coach duties, taking on the head swimming and golf positions. He led the football program through the 1958 season and completed five seasons as golf coach in 1959 and six as swim coach in 1960.
Lundeen’s first stint as director of athletics ended in 1959 when he was named director of the new College Union. He retained that position after being named building director for the Physical Education Center in 1971, but left the College Union in the fall of 1973 to again become director of athletics. He resigned his building director duties in 1974, but remained as Augustana’s A.D. until his retirement in 1982.
Lundeen’s second go-round leading the Viking athletic department yielded a total of 37 College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin championships—an average of more than four per year during a time when the conference sponsored just nine sports. In his final year of 1981-82, Augustana was even more dominant, claiming conference titles in seven of nine sports.
During Lundeen’s second tenure as A.D., Viking athletic programs excelled at the national level as well, recording a total of 23 top-ten finishes. Augustana men logged at least one top-10 national finish in seven different sports, including five each in basketball and track & field and four in cross country. During the 1980-81 school year, each of those three programs finished second in the nation.
In addition, Lundeen was instrumental in Augustana landing host privileges for the 1978 NCAA Division III Cross Country Championship as well as the NCAA Division III Basketball Championship (final four) from 1977-81.
Vince married Dorothy Nelson in 1942 and they had two children, Carolyn and Bryce. Dorothy worked as a catalogue librarian at Augustana. They were longtime members of First Covenant Church in Moline, Illinois and Vince served as president of the Black Hawk Chapter of the American Red Cross and on the Rock Island YMCA board of directors. After returning to Minnesota, the Lundeens belonged to Salem Covenant Church in New Brighton.
The couple was married for 57 years until Vince’s death in 2000 at the age of 83. Dorothy passed away in 2005.
“For me, success is having peace of mind,” said Lundeen toward the end of his time at Augustana. “And knowing you’re doing your best; being loved by your family and friends and being able to make a contribution to youth, church and community.”
