A lasting scoring legacy; Former Austin player still holds Big Nine average scoring record
Published 11:06 am Friday, February 13, 2015
If you put a basketball in Wayne Lerud’s hands in the 1960s or 1970s, chances are he was going to find a way to get it through the hoop.
The Austin grad was one of the most prolific scorers in the state in his time and his Big Nine leading 31.2 points per game in the 1964-1965 season is still the highest scoring average of any Big Nine player after 50 years have passed. Lerud, who still lives in Austin, went on to star at Austin Community College, where he led the entire nation in scoring with 37.6 points per game during the 1965-1966 season.
Through it all, Lerud passed up a chance to play basketball at Northwestern University and he turned down a chance to play pro basketball. He has no regrets.
Lerud received an offer from Northwestern out of high school, but he worked out a deal where he could get a job at Hormel if he played at ACC for two years so he stayed in town. After playing two years of community college basketball, Lerud landed on the roster for the Denver pro basketball team that eventually became the Denver Nuggets.
But instead of staying in Denver for six months to become eligible to play, he moved back to Austin to work at Hormel, where he made just as much money as he would’ve made playing pro basketball.
“I made their roster and that was enough for me,” Lerud said. “Knowing that I had beat out a guy that had played [pro ball] for three years. It worked out pretty good for me at Hormel, and I retired at age 49. Had I been born 10 years later, I may have pursued [a pro basketball career]. But the money wasn’t there and the teams weren’t quite established yet.”
Lerud didn’t walk away from basketball completely. He played on a competitive tri-state city league traveling team for 12 years and he was on the 1979 state championship city league team. Lerud once scored 103 points in a city league game and he was also part of an Austin team that beat the Minnesota Vikings traveling basketball team one summer. That Vikings team was previously 66-0.
The Vikings had a team that featured Ahmad Rashad, Leo Lewis and Matt Blair, and Lerud and his Austin teammates beat them by 15 points.
“We were supposed to have a get together at the Eagles after that game and none of the Vikings showed up because they were so mad we beat them,” Lerud said.
Lerud didn’t play a lot for the Austin Packers until his senior season, but he certainly made that year count. In an era when there was no three-point line and the games were four minutes shorter, Lerud put up scoring numbers that will be very difficult for any modern Big Nine player to match.
He said he’s not surprised his record has stood for half a century.
“That was a lot of points,” Lerud said. “The other factor is I didn’t have the three-point shot and half of my shots were three pointers.”
Out of all of the times he scored for the Packers, Lerud mostly remembers a moment that was almost the most embarrassing shot of his career. The Packers were playing Faribault when Lerud lost his place on the court and forgot which end he was on. He went to pull up for a jump shot, and then he realized he was at the half court mark.
“I re-cocked and let her go,” Lerud said. “I looked over at my coach and he had his clipboard down like he was going to throw it and then it went it. I was so thankful it went in. I would’ve looked like a fool if it didn’t. The Faribault coach threw a towel on the court and he got a technical, so I made the free throw for a three-point play.”
Lerud was obsessed with basketball while growing up in Austin. He remembered watching the Packers play in the state tournament on TV when he was in fifth grade and he would do what he could to emulate the plays he was watching. Lerud and his friends would sneak in the gym at night and shoot hoops until the morning when they would hear the janitor’s come in. He also remembered playing pick-up games until midnight with his friends.
“I would study every player that ever played and I would perfect their best shot,” Lerud said. “I had every shot there was. I put them all together, and I could score from anywhere on the court. That really helped me.”
Lerud is now in the AHS Athletic Hall of Fame and the Riverland Athletic Hall of Fame. He still keeps his eye on the Packers and he enjoyed watching the team play in the state tournament the past few years.
“I have to say [coach Fadness] is the best coach Austin’s ever had,” Lerud said. “He’s the best coach in the state. If you go to an Austin High School basketball game, you’re seeing the best basketball there is in the state because of the defense they play.”