Lunda still has some vivid memories from soccer's tran- sition from a club sport. "We just wanted to play,'' she said. "We borrowed men's uniforms and sold choco- late bars to make money.''
UW women's soccer coach.
During her formative years, Lunda actually played soccer with and against Webb. "If Karen Lunda were playing today,'' he said,
"she would be a combination of Abby Wambach and Carli Lloyd. I have absolutely no doubt she'd be wearing an Olympic gold medal around her neck.''
Lunda was flattered. "I would say definitely back then I would have had a shot (at the Olympic team),'' she said. "Being an All-American, I was one of the better players in the country and would have been invited to the national team. But it's hard to know how everything would have panned out.''
Fact is, Lunda almost did make it to the Olym- pics — in speed skating. She was an alternate for the 1976 U.S. team in Innsbruck, Austria. Her old- er sister, Kay, was on the 1972 Olympic team. Karen Lunda trained with the Heidens: Eric,
who won five gold medals in the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics and his sister Beth, a bronze medalist. Lunda gave up speed skating in her mid-teens. "I couldn't earn a living doing that type of thing,'' she said, "and I wanted to be a physical therapist.'' Her appreciation for competition never waned. Nor did she ever take competing for granted
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