Lucien Anthony "Lu" Gambino (September 21, 1923 – July 16, 2003) was an American football running back.

While playing for Maryland, he set the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) season scoring high for 1947 with 16 touchdowns and 96 points and was named the 1948 Gator Bowl most valuable player.

[3] At Indiana, Gambino played alongside consensus All-America back, and future Colts teammate, Billy Hillenbrand.

[4] Shortly thereafter, Gambino dropped out of school to join the United States Army Air Forces and serve during the Second World War.

He considered Indiana to be a far superior football program and called Maryland a "cow school,"[6] but it was located relatively close to his mother, who was widowed and living alone in Baltimore.

[1][6] During the 1946 season, Gambino saw limited playing time for a mediocre Terrapins football team directed by head coach Clark Shaughnessy.

Gambino had briefly attended the University of Indiana during the war and saw some minimal game action as "not much more than a walk-on, but was charged a full year of eligibility for his efforts.

[13] Gambino called the decision "crooked" and asserted that the standing rules did not count returning veterans' pre-war playing career against their eligibility.

[6] Geary Eppley, a Maryland athletics official and member of the Southern Conference executive committee, filed a request for a special session to consider a rule change,[14] but it failed to garner support from the two-thirds of the member schools required to call such a meeting.

The Chicago Bears of the NFL, which had drafted him during the war, still had a strong interest in him, as did the Baltimore Colts of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), who saw the Maryland star as a potential gate attraction.

"[16] In When the Colts Belonged to Baltimore, author William Gildea described Gambino: "In street clothes he looked like Robert Mitchum—wide-brimmed hat, long overcoat, baggy but creased trousers, a cigarette between his fingers, a craggy smile.