Recalling Two National Titles

SVU’s Lund Looks Back On Time As Oklahoma Sooner

Football memories and family have been key parts of Buena Vista resident Craig Lund’s life.

Lund, the senior admissions counselor at Southern Virginia University, got to combine both of those for a few days this summer when he took his wife of 45 years, Jill, and 14 other family members to the University of Oklahoma to celebrate the 50-year reunion of the national championship football team he was on. “We got a really good turnout,” said Lund. “It was great.”

Lund, 70, was a tight end for Oklahoma when the team won back-to-back national titles in 1974 and 1975. The 1974 team went 11-0. When Lund was a senior in 1975, he started. The Sooners lost a game to Kansas but came back and won the national championship against Michigan in the Orange Bowl. During his four years at Oklahoma, the Sooners lost only two games.

For the reunion, Lund and many of his former teammates and their families met up at Oklahoma on Thursday, Aug. 29, and reminisced on college memories. The following night, they braved the heat to attend the season opener against Temple University, which Oklahoma won 51-3. At halftime, members of the 1974 and 1975 championship teams were recognized on the field.

It was also a special night because one of Lund’s former teammates, linebacker Dewey Selmon, was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Dewey was one of three Selmon brothers who were All-Americans when they played for Oklahoma in the 1970s. The others were Lucious, a nose guard, and Lee Roy, a defensive end. All three of them played in the NFL. Some other members of the College Football Hall of Fame who played for Oklahoma were in attendance, including Brian “the Boz” Bosworth, Tony Casillas and Joe Washington.

The 1974 and 1975 national championship Oklahoma football teams combine their classes for a reunion every four or five years, and Lund has been back often, although they didn’t have one in 2020 due to the COVID19 pandemic.

Before Oklahoma, Lund grew up in the Philadelphia, Pa. area. His father went to medical school at Temple University. Later on, the family moved to Texas, and Lund played high school football at Richardson High School, which is in a suburb of Dallas. “We had a really good team and a really good program there,” said Lund, noting that his senior class had six players who got Division I scholarships.

Lund was recruited by Jimmy Johnson, who was an assistant coach at Oklahoma. Johnson would later become the head coach of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins.

When Lund was recruited, Chuck Fairbanks was Oklahoma’s head coach, but Fairbanks left to coach the NFL’s New England Patriots, and Barry Switzer became Oklahoma’s head coach and led the Sooners to the two national titles. Switzer later coached the Dallas Cowboys. Another NFL coaching legend, Mike Shanahan, was Lund’s receivers coach at Oklahoma. Shanahan would win two Super Bowls as head coach for the Denver Broncos and one as offensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers.

Lund said it was “pretty amazing” playing for and learning from these great coaches.

When Lund first came to SVU, he did some coaching himself. He and his family were living in Fairfax, where he was working in the computer software industry. They checked out SVU, and he saw the football team was just starting up, under head coach Gary Buer. Lund got a job as an assistant coach and also worked in admissions, doing both jobs for four years. The Knights won just four games during that time, but they developed a football program that would stay.

In 2007, Lund left SVU and worked in insurance for six years. He returned to SVU as the senior admission counselor. Lund helps people with insurance on the side, but his main job is with SVU.

Craig and Jill Lund have five children, four of whom graduated from SVU, and 13 grandchildren. While Craig, Jill and other family members flew to Oklahoma, their youngest son, Dallas, was able to drive with his wife and children from Louisiana, where they live.

Happy that they got to enjoy the Oklahoma football reunion with a lot of family this year, Craig said, “It was a great time. I just liked my family being there. That was the amazing part about it.”