Ex-Gopher star, Supervalu CEO Michael Wright dies at 81

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Michael Wright, a former University of Minnesota football star who led grocery wholesaler Supervalu for 20 years, has died. He was 81.

Wright’s son tells the Star Tribune that Wright died Monday at his home in Wayzata of complications from pneumonia. The Minneapolis native became captain of the Gophers football team in 1959. Wright was drafted by teams in the NFL, AFL and the Canadian Football League. He took the highest offer, an $11,000 salary from the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers, coached by another Gopher alum, Bud Grant.

Wright built Supervalu into the nation’s largest grocery wholesaler in the 1980s and ’90s.