MERLE “PETE” PETERSON ’55 doesn’t want his name attached to the Warrior Football Scholarship. He hopes to continue the feeling of camaraderie from his playing days by having fellow alumni build an endowment to support the Winona State football program.
Despite weighing “only about 160,” the Korean War veteran played both the offensive and defensive lines for a Warriors team that battled St. Cloud State Teachers College for a conference championship.
“It was a very close team, one that still gets together today,” says Peterson, who retired from teaching and coaching in 1986. “I have great memories, and that inspired me to create the Warrior Football Scholarship.”
MITCH LUNDER ’14 and Pete Peterson talk football and compare notes on the Warriors’ progress at the 2013 WSU Foundation Scholarship Breakfast. Lunder says the Warrior Football Scholarship gives him an incentive to work hard every day. “When somebody is investing in you, you don’t want to take it for granted.”
An accounting major from New Prague, Minnesota, Lunder knows all about hard work. He walked-on to the football team, earning a starting role at safety by “going all in, giving it everything I had.”
After an outstanding 2011, he tore three ligaments in his knee and spent the next year either on crutches or in rehabilitation. He made it back for the 2013 season, recording 38 tackles and two interceptions.
“Without the Warrior Football Scholarship I couldn’t have afforded to come back for a fifth season,” says Lunder. “It gives kids like me an opportunity.”
