He played football and baseball at Hillsdale College, where he was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.

He served as the head coach at Colorado State University from 1962 to 1969, compiling a record of 29–51–1.

Lude was the head baseball coach at Hillsdale College from 1948 to 1949 and at the University of Maine from 1950 to 1951.

As athletic director at Kent State, Lude offered Don James his first head coaching job in 1971; the two later worked together for fifteen years at Washington.

This biographical article relating to a college football coach first appointed in the 1960s is a stub.