Success Is Temporary. Impact Is Forever.

Tanja Hansen • September 4, 2026

After 57 seasons, more than 400 victories and four state championships, Coach Dwight Lundeen has built a football résumé few coaches will ever match.


But ask him about his legacy, and the wins are not what he talks about.


During a recent conversation with KFAN’s Paul Allen at the Minnesota State Fair, Dwight sat alongside his son, Redwood Valley coach Matt Lundeen, to talk about football, family, faith and the new book Matt wrote about his father’s life, Success Is Temporary. Impact Is Forever: 57 Years of Influence.


The title captures something Dwight has spent nearly six decades living out.


Football may be the platform. The purpose is much bigger.

More Than a Record


Dwight began Becker High School’s football program from the ground up. There was no field, no equipment and initially only seven players interested in playing. Over the decades that followed, the program grew into one of Minnesota’s most successful.


Yet Dwight told Allen that the lasting value of coaching has never been found simply in the scoreboard.

His hope is that the young men who leave his program become better husbands, fathers and members of their communities. His approach to coaching begins with knowing his athletes personally, caring about them and making sure every player understands that he matters.


“If a kid knows that you really care and you love him, he’ll run through the wall for you,” Dwight said.

For Matt, that distinction became one of the central lessons of the book.


“The goal in coaching is to win every game,” Matt explained. “Your purpose is to impact lives in a positive way.”


That difference between goal and purpose has shaped generations of Lundeen’s players, coaches and family.

A Platform for the Gospel


Dwight grew up as the son of a pastor and missionary and spent about 12 years of his childhood in the Congo. Watching his father live a life of service helped shape his own calling to education and coaching.


Eventually, the football field became Dwight’s mission field.


For all 57 years of his career at Becker, FCA has been part of that ministry.


Dwight explained that working in a public school requires wisdom about how and when he shares his faith. FCA provides a place where students from different teams, churches and backgrounds can come together and hear clearly what drives him.


“And Christ is the center of that,” Dwight said. “Let’s make Christ the center of our life.”


For Dwight, FCA has never been separate from his desire to serve Becker. He believes students living out their faith make the entire school stronger.


“If I didn’t think that FCA had a positive impact on our school, I wouldn’t have it,”  Dwight said. “I’ve done it 57 years, and we’re going to keep doing it.”

A Legacy That Multiplies


Perhaps the clearest picture of Dwight’s impact can be seen in what has happened beyond Becker.


His children followed him into education. Matt coaches and leads FCA at Redwood Valley. Dwight proudly talked about FCA continuing through his children and grandchildren and about the impact FCA Camps have had through the years.


“Summer camps through FCA are amazing,” Dwight told Allen. “It’s a life-changing kind of thing.”


That is the kind of legacy Dwight cares about. Not simply building a successful program, but investing in people who invest in others.


Matt described the lesson this way: “Football’s the platform of the book, but life is the lesson.”


Whatever platform God has given someone, Matt said, the opportunity is to intentionally invest in the people already around them. For a coach, that may be an entire team. For a teacher, it may be a few students. For a grandparent, it may be grandchildren.


The size of the platform matters far less than what we do with it.

What Lasts


As Dwight prepares to finish his 57th and final season, the numbers attached to his career are significant.


But Dwight knows records eventually fade.


“Nobody knows my record,” he told Allen. “It doesn’t make any difference and nobody cares. It’s the legacy that I leave behind of continuing doing the things that impact lives.”


That legacy can already be seen across generations.


It is in the players who learned that their value was bigger than their position on a depth chart. It is in coaches who learned to lead by serving. It is in a family carrying forward the same commitment to Christ. And it is in decades of students who have gathered through FCA to hear the Gospel and discover what it means to put Christ at the center of their lives.


Near the end of the interview, Allen thanked Dwight for his dedication to his wife, his family and generations of Becker football players. Then he named what mattered most.


The Gospel of Jesus Christ.


After 57 years, Dwight Lundeen’s career is a powerful reminder of what can happen when a coach understands the influence God has given him and chooses to use it for something bigger than himself.


Success is temporary. Impact is forever.
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