UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA NEWS RELEASE
STORY ON LUTE OLSON FROM ARIZONA DAILY STAR
2001 STORY ON LUTE OLSON'S LIFE AT AUGSBURG FROM ARIZONA DAILY STAR

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Lute Olson '56, an Augsburg University alumnus who won 780 games in a Hall of Fame career as one of the best college basketball coaches of all time, died on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020 at the age of 85.
 
A North Dakota native, Olson attended Augsburg from 1952-56, playing four years of men's basketball and football, while playing baseball during his senior year. A co-captain of both the Auggie football and basketball teams in his senior year (1955-56), he earned All-Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and Minneapolis Tribune All-State Team honors in basketball, and was named as the 1956 Augsburg Honor Athlete, the highest honor given to a senior student-athlete for success on the playing field and in the classroom.
 
He earned his bachelor's degree from Augsburg in 1956, with a double major in history and physical education. Olson was inducted into the Augsburg Athletic Hall of Fame in 1977 and received Augsburg's Distinguished Alumni Award in 1985. In 2007, the "Lute Olson Hall of Champions," a display honoring the university's intercollegiate athletic programs, was unveiled in the new Kennedy Center addition to Si Melby Hall.
 
"I felt fortunate to get more than just an academic and athletic experience in my college days," Olson said in a 1986 profile in the Augsburg Now alumni magazine. "The emphasis of developing the total person -- intellectual, athletic and spiritual -- was important to me."
 
A native of Mayville, N.D., he attended Mayville High School for three years before the family moved to Grand Forks, N.D. He graduated from Grand Forks Central High School in 1952.
 
"My childhood background emphasized work and discipline," Olson said in the 1986 Augsburg Now profile. "My father died when I was five, and my mother expected me to do the right thing. As a sixth-grader, I started working for farmers, so I developed the work ethic early. Augsburg reinforced those same principles.
 
"I was looking for a school interested in individuals when I came to Augsburg, and that's what I found. … You were a student first and an athlete second."
 
Olson remained close to his alma mater throughout his Hall of Fame coaching career, leading several fundraising drives, including a major drive to benefit the A-Club alumni organization in 1992. A plaque honoring Olson's achievements hangs in the lobby of Si Melby Hall, and a banner in his honor hangs in the gymnasium.
 
After graduating from Augsburg, Olson coached in high schools in Minnesota (Mahnomen, Two Harbors) and California before beginning his collegiate men's basketball coaching career at Long Beach (Calif.) City College in 1970. After coaching at Division I Long Beach State in 1973-74, he was hired as head coach at the University of Iowa, finishing with a 186-90 record there in in 14 seasons, including a trip to the Final Four in 1980.
 
In 1983, he moved to the University of Arizona, where he coached the Wildcats for 24 years and led the team to four Final Fours, including the national championship in 1997 and national runner-up honors in 2001 in Minneapolis, finishing with a 587-187 record with the Wildcats. Olson finished his collegiate career with a 780-280 record.
 
Olson was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002, the high point of a career in which he earned virtually every honor a collegiate basketball coach could receive. He earned the John R. Wooden "Legends of Coaching" and the Clair Bee Coach-of-the-Year awards in 2001, earned national Coach of the Year honors in 1988 and 1990 as well, and was named Pac 10 Conference Coach of the Year seven times and Big Ten Conference Coach of the Year twice. Olson received the 2013 Naismith Outstanding Contributor to Men's College Basketball Award from the Atlanta Tipoff Club. He was inducted into the Pac-10 Conference Hall of Honor in 2009.
 
In addition to his collegiate honors, Olson was inducted into the Pima County (Ariz.) Sports Hall of Fame and the Two Harbors (Minn.) Sports Hall of Fame in 2001, and was inducted into the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame in Minot, N.D., in 2010.
 
Olson married Roberta Rae "Bobbi" Russell while he was a student at Augsburg in 1953. The couple was married 47 years before Bobbi passed away on Jan. 1, 2001, after a battle with ovarian cancer. They had five children -- daughters Vicki, Jody and Christi, and sons Greg and Steve. The basketball court at Arizona's McKale Center was named as the "Lute and Bobbi Olson Court" after Bobbi's passing. Olson remarried in 2003, to Christine Toretti. The couple divorced in 2008. In 2010, Olson married Kelly Pugnea.