Inside The Huskies

Mike Lude, UW Athletic Director During Golden Football Era, Dies at 101

He oversaw Montlake sports from 1976-91 and got the Husky Stadium north deck built.

Dan Raley

Mike Lude, UW Athletic Director During Golden Football Era, Dies at 101
Mike Lude, UW Athletic Director During Golden Football Era, Dies at 101 /
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Milo "Mike" Lude, the University of Washington's longest-serving athletic director who oversaw a golden era of Husky football, died on Thursday night in Tucson, Arizona. He lived to be 101.

Lude worked in Montlake from 1976-91 after he was hired from Kent State, where he had given the legendary Don James his first head-coaching job.

Each man ended up at the UW, with James preceding Lude at the school by a year, and together they built a college football powerhouse.  

Under his leadership, Lude was able to get the Husky Stadium north deck built though it took two tries — collapsing the first time during construction — and he was in charge when the UW sent multiple football teams to the Rose Bowl and one to the Orange Bowl, among several postseason games.

Lude and James together created such a football presence at the school, UW president William Gerberding felt threatened by it and eventually forced Lude out of his job in 1991 and had an indignant James resign two years later.

The athletic director was let go just months after the Husky football team beat Iowa 46-34 in the first of three consecutive Rose Bowl appearances — and just months before the UW won the 1991 national championship, unable to share in it professionally.

Lude was the UW's 11th athletic director. Current AD Troy Dannen, hired six months ago, is the 16th. The two spoke during the recent Husky football national playoff run.

"Legend in this business and a loyal Husky," Dannen said of his fellow Husky exec.

A Michigan native, Lude got into coaching and served as a long-time football assistant, first  for a season at Hillsdale College, his alma mater; then it was on to Maine for two seasons, and to Delaware for 11 seasons. 

In 1962-69, he served as the head football coach at Colorado State, but had limited success, going 29-51-1, and was fired.

Yet it was during that time Lude became acquainted with James, who was a nearby Colorado assistant football coach in 1968-70, and they formed long-time personal and professional relationships.

Lude ended up hiring James at Kent State in 1971 and they were together for four seasons before the UW hired each one away in consecutive years.

After Lude had his Montlake falling out with upper campus, he spent three years at Auburn as the SEC school's athletic director.

For the past three decades, Lude had lived in Arizona. Always the energetic one, he marked his 93rd birthday by going tandem skydiving.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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