The Old Blog in the Desert

William Donald Lund, Jr. passed away on January 30, 2020 at the age of 63. Better known as Bill, he was born on December 1, 1956 in Sacramento, CA.

While he grew up in Northern California all his life, it wasn’t until 1973 that he moved to Crescent City from Blue Lake, with his family. He attended Del Norte High School for two years, graduating in 1975.

Bill and I met in high school where he was a senior and I was a freshman. He saved me one morning by stopping a couple of his classmates from giving me a ‘Del Norte Swirl’ in the boy’s bathroom in ‘B’ hall.

I still owe him for that bit of grace.

At Del Norte he excelled in both football and basketball. In basketball he earned two all-conference honors his junior and senior years, and also earning the MVP award as a senior.

Bill went on to attend Butte College in Chico, California in 1976, and then Arcata’s College of the Redwoods in 1977. At Butte, he was a member of the Community College State Championship team.

At CR he earned all-conference in basketball and for a time held the single season scoring record. He was a member of the all decade team, that had the most wins in the school’s history. Bill still holds a spot in the college’s record book for scoring and rebounds.

From there he went on to be a very successful and talented independent contractor.

Finally, I could have used a photo of him taken from his Facebook page or the obituary in the Del Norte Triplicate, where I drew much of the above information, but in the end, I think a nice black-and-white action shot of Number 52 racing down an opponent in basketball from back in 1975, is the perfect way to remember my friend.