In a June 6, 2024 editorial in the Patriot, Becker School Superintendent Jeremy Schmidt addressed the 2024 graduating class.  In that letter, Schmidt wrote, “As we celebrate the Class of 2024, we acknowledge the collective effort of our dedicated teachers, administrators, and staff members who have provided guidance, support, and inspiration to these remarkable students. Their commitment to nurturing each student’s potential has contributed significantly to the successes we honor today.”

AD and Head Basketball Coach

For 2006 Becker High School graduate Daved Lundeen, a couple of Becker coaches provided him with the guidance, support, and inspiration he would need to be successful.  

Lundeen has recently accepted a new position as athletic director and men’s basketball coach at Oak Hills Christian College in Bemidji, MN.  His new position is the result of 14 years of experience in coaching and the lessons he learned when he was a student at BHS. 

Resume

Lundeen already has an impressive resume.  He started coaching basketball in 2009 at North Central University in Minneapolis, MN, and in that five-year stint, also served at times as assistant sports information director, soccer gameday manager, and interim head coach for men’s and women’s tennis.   Lundeen spent a year coaching at Crown College in Saint Bonifacius, MN before moving to Moore, OK to spend two seasons as an assistant coach and sports information director at Randall University.  He has spent the last six years as the head varsity boys basketball coach at Williston High School in Williston, ND. 

Life Lessons

Beyond those accomplishments are the lessons Lundeen learned at BHS, lessons that have made him the coach he is today.   Lundeen explained his coaching style is relational.  

“I’m going to get to know you and care about you and you’re going to know that I care about you,” he said.

Being relational was a lesson he learned from BHS’s tennis coach Hokan Bengtson, someone he’s still close to today and someone who got to know him when he was one of his players.   

“Other than my dad, there’s never been a man who’s had a more meaningful impact on my life than Coach Bengtson,” Lundeen said.  “He taught me a ton about coaching.  He taught me about life.  He’s just an incredible person.”

“He made me a better tennis player, but he made me to be a better person and he taught us how to be a team,” Lundeen continued.  “He taught us how to mature as young men.  How to care about people.  How to care about what we were doing and whatever we’re doing - how to do it to the best of our ability.”

Being Supporters of Everyone

Hall of Fame Football Coach Dwight Lundeen also inspired him, but not as a football coach.  Daved never played football.  

“I was a huge disappointment when I moved to Becker as a six-foot-five athlete in 10th grade with the last name Lundeen and I didn’t play football,”  he joked.  

Coach Dwight Lundeen was not just the football coach, but also the athletic director when Daved attended BHS.  

“He knew all of us,” Daved said.  “He cared about all of us and he was intentional about having relationships with us. We had an extra connection because he went to the church that my dad was a pastor at as well.  So, I got to know him outside of school, but he did such a great job of being intentional about caring for the other sports as well.”

Daved believes that is why other sports have had success at Becker.  It’s a lesson that as athletic director he hopes to carry on at Oak Hills.  

“It’s something I’ve been intentional about as a coach as well - making sure our athletes are going to support the volleyball team, or going to soccer games,” he said. “Trying to get your student athletes to be engaged in other sports.”

That engagement goes beyond athletics.  Lundeen includes other events as well.  He recognizes that athletes hope that their fellow students come out to cheer them on, but Lundeen believes they should cheer their fellow students on as well whether it be a choir or band concert or something else.

Faith

One of the words that Lundeen used to describe the coaches in his life, particularly about Coach Bengtson, was the word authentic.  Bengtson was authentic in his love for his athletes, but also authentic in his faith.  Lundeen strives for that same authenticity.  Though he was careful to not talk about faith during practices as a high school coach, he was always ready to do so when matters of faith came up in conversations outside of school.  Lundeen admitted that there are going to be areas of life where his players will struggle, areas where he struggled as well.   In his life, his answer was God. 

“I’m not going to lie and say that they should just grit their teeth and push on through, and you can do it all on your own,” he said. “I don’t think you can.  Because I’ve tried and I’ve failed miserably and the only way I’ve been able to get through situations like that was because of my faith and my relationship with Christ.”

Lundeen acknowledged that he strives to be authentic wherever he is, but working at Oak Hills allows him to lean into those aspects of faith.  

“I love coaching.  I’m super competitive.  I really hate losing,” he said.   “I love that aspect of coaching.  I love the chess match of coaching – trying to get a leg up on your opponent, but if the growth and development side of it wasn’t involved, I don’t think I would want to do this as a career.  Because if my successes were exclusively my wins and losses, this is a really depressing profession.”

Looking beyond wins and losses is what he hopes to bring to Oak Hills.  

“I can measure success beyond the wins and losses because there’s something more important to me in my profession and it’s making an impact on these kids and I’m excited to do that here at Oak Hills,”  Lundeen said. 

Given Lundeen’s past experience and the coaches who have influenced him, success will most likely follow him to Oak Hills and beyond.