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Past CoSIDA 25-Year Award Recipients
Mike Lund – Portland State University, Associate Athletics Director/Media and Communications
2019 CoSIDA 25-Year Award recipient
by Blake Timm, Great Northwest Athletic Conference Assistant Commissioner
In this business, getting your foot in the door is often about who you know and being in the right place at the right time.
Mike Lund can credit his career to both. The Portland State Associate Athletics Director for Media and Communications has parlayed that intersection into a 30-year career on the Park Blocks and a 32-year career in athletic communications.
Both milestones will be honored this June as Lund receives a long overdue 25-Year Award from the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) at the organization’s annual convention in June.
That long career would not have happened if the former baseball player hadn’t happened upon sports information during his sports career at Lewis & Clark College in Portland. With a love for sports and writing ability, Lund was quickly tapped by L&C’s public information director Chuck Charnquist to assist track and field head coach David Fix with sports information duties.
The Lund family: Wife Cheri, daughter Gracie, Mike and son Lucas in 2018.
Those in the Northwest know that Charnquist was as much of sports guy as anyone. The former SID at Portland State, Lewis & Clark and Linfield — and the longtime Portland Trail Blazers statistician — saw something in Lund, who was named the school’s part-time SID in 1987.
“I was looking for anything I could get,” Lund said of his first part-time position at L&C. “This was 1987. It was a small number of hours per week and probably minimum wage. I helped out as an assistant women’s basketball coach to make a little extra money.”
While Charnquist opened the door to sports information, it also opened a much bigger door for Lund to help out at Portland Trail Blazers’ games. It was there that he met another Northwest sports information legend, John Hilsenteger, who provided even more opportunities. The encounter eventually opened the door to a six-month temporary contract for Lund from Portland State administrators Larry Sellers and Teri Mariani, a contract to cover volleyball and women’s basketball at Portland State.
That was 30 years ago. Since then, Lund has guided the Vikings’ public relations ship from Division II to Division I membership.
Lund said he credits his success in the profession to his relationships with Charnquist and Hilsenteger who taught him much about what it took to do the job well.
“When I got into it and Chuck was showing me the ropes, I would look at this press releases and say ‘Wow, that is how you do it.’ I would look at how things were done,” Lund said. “I came to find out that just about anybody in the Northwest at the time somehow had a relationship with Chuck. I was just one of many he helped along the way.”
The same held true for Hilsenteger, who was the sports information director for the Oregon School Activities Association for 26 years.
“He probably educated me more on the right way to do things. There is a right way to do things in running a tournament, running a game, dealing with people. He taught me a lot of that,” Lund noted. “I always leaned on John. I always had questions to ask him, even when he worked for me at Portland State.”
Lund has carried those lessons into his first-class work with Portland State and also his “second job” with the Blazers, where he has been a member of the game-day staff since 1987. He was on the official scorebook during the historic four-overtime game with Denver in the Western Conference semifinals, among many other special moments.
“I got to work the Tournament of the Americas in 1992 with the Dream Team,” Lund said. “I sat courtside and kept stats. I watched all of the greatest players in the world.”
While much has changed over 30 years, the one thing that doesn’t is what has kept Lund in the business and at Portland State: the people. Because of that, the Portland-area native hasn’t wanted to go anywhere else.
“I am from here. I want to be here. I wanted to be a Division I SID and I got that opportunity. My family’s here,” Lund said. “And I have worked with so many great people. I have had so many wonderful people to work with that maybe I am a little afraid of putting myself in a situation where you have to start over.”
And Lund doesn’t see himself leaving Portland State anytime soon. His son, Lucas, will graduate from Western Oregon University this June while his daughter, Gracie, has a few years before matriculating to college. While his service to Portland State could allow him to retire soon, Lund still enjoys what he does and looks forward to seeing the Vikings continue to succeed.
“My hope is that we win more,” he said. “I want to see us win a Big Sky Conference football championship. I want to see us win another Big Sky Conference basketball championship. I want to see us have more and more successes. That is what makes it fun.”