Former Washington AD Lude skydives for 93rd birthday
For his 93rd birthday last week, former Washington athletic director Mike Lude went skydiving near Casa Grande. Lude, who has lived in Tucson after retiring as Auburn’s AD about 20 years ago, could pass for 63. He is now, as he was in the Pac-10, a man who makes things happen. On the Pac-10 Skywriters Tour in 1987, when the UW debuted a renovated Husky Stadium, Lude invited visiting sportswriters to join him on the roof overlooking the north bleachers at Husky Stadium. There were no handrails and it must’ve been 100 feet from the roof to the bleachers below. You could clearly see Mount Rainier and all the way to Canada, but after about two steps on the roof, I froze. Lude walked to the edge and raved about the view. His legacy is powerful: I think he and Arizona’s Cedric Dempsey were the league’s two top ADs of the Pac-10 years, 1978-2010.
