AHEAD OF HER TIME
The end of field hockey at UW turned out to actually be a new beginning for All-American — and Hall of Fame inductee — Karen Lunda
BY MIKE LUCAS • UWBADGERS.COM G
rowing up in the Camp Randall Stadium neighbor- hood, Karen Lunda was a self-described tomboy who played whatever sport was in season, and what- ever sport she could. "I played on a boys' soccer team from sixth to ninth grade,'' she said, "because they didn't
have girls' soccer.'' Hold that thought — "because they didn't have girls' soccer'' — and put
it into context: the U.S. women's soccer team just won its third-consecutive gold medal in the 2012 London Olympics. "It's interesting to look back over the whole spectrum because it's changed drastically,'' Lunda said.
Perspective, historical or other-
wise, is not lacking in Karen Lunda, the Badgers' first women's soccer All- American and a member of the 2012 induction class for the UW Athletic Hall of Fame. "It's very exciting and very humbling,'' she said. The irony is that when Lunda first got to Wisconsin in the late '70s, she basically thought, "My athletic career was pretty much over. I wasn't good enough to play basketball or tennis. And they didn't have softball or soc- cer. But I wanted to try something.'' So she went out for the field hockey
team. "I had never played the game before,'' said Lunda, who had compet- ed in tennis and softball at Madison West High School. "The only thing that I really knew about it was there were 11 players, which is the same as soccer.'' One of her former softball coaches provided her with a stick and a ball and Lunda took it from there. "When I tried out, my goal was to make the traveling team,'' she said. "And I ended up being the leading scorer my freshman year and getting a scholar- ship.''
