after dealing with Osgood-Schlatter disease. "It really made me appreciate my health,'' she said. "Having it in a sense taken away from me — not being able to play sports for that year — I feel very fortunate that I've had all the opportunities that I've had.''
Since 1984, Lunda has been living in Tucson,
Ariz., and building Lunda & Associates, a work in- jury evaluation and prevention firm specializing in functional capacity and ergonomic evaluations. "Similar to rehabbing an athlete back to a sport,'' she said, "we rehab a worker back to their job.'' Lunda expects to be overcome by a flood of good memories when she returns to Madi- son for Friday night's hall of fame induction ceremonies in front of the Camp Randall Memorial Sports Cen- ter. "I'll get to see almost my entire family and friends I haven't seen for years,'' she said. When Webb was asked to detail Lunda's legacy, he called her "the foundation'' upon which the UW women's soccer program was built. "Although many other great women made huge contribution to our suc- cess,'' he said, "without Karen it sim- ply would not have happened.'' From her estimable perspective, Lunda believes her legacy would be tied to "being a hard worker and using the talent that I had'' to be successful in whatever endeavor or sport. She has never cursed her fate for coming along too soon or "ahead of her time'' or before Title IX really took root. Nonetheless, what if … what if she
would have had the opportunity to play four years of college soccer for the Badgers, not just one? "To be honest,'' she said, "I don't know that I would trade those years of both play- ing field hockey and the soccer club experience.'' That's because her only goal was to just play, to just do it.
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"If Karen Lunda were play- ing today,'' said former coach Craig Webb, "she would be a combination of Abby Wambach and Carli Lloyd. I have absolutely no doubt she'd be wearing an Olym- pic gold medal around her neck.''
