Fundraising Friday: Multimillion-Dollar Gifts Target UC Irvine Baseball, PSU Football, NKU Tennis Facilities

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Ab24 Fundraising Friday

Welcome to Fundraising Friday, AB Today's weekly digest of recent developments in development:

University of California, Irvine Athletics has received a gift of $5 million to further bolster its baseball program. According to the school's announcement Thursday, the donation Steve and Linda Borowski is the largest in the athletic department's history and will found and name a new player development center. The Borowski Family Player Development Center will be a key component of Anteater Ballpark, as it will significantly enhance training for student-athletes. The center will include a strength and conditioning facility, a sports medicine facility, a five-lane batting cage, a pitching lab, an alumni/player lounge, office space, and designated production and filming areas.

The Penn State University athletic department recently received a $5 million gift from former Penn State Board of Trustees chair Matthew Schuyler and his wife, Anne. According to a Thursday announcement on the PSU athletics website, the gift will support the Beaver Stadium Revitalization project. The West side’s field club in the revitalized stadium will be named the Schuyler Family Club and will play a key role in making Beaver Stadium a year-round hub of campus and community activities on non-game days, while also offering a tremendous game day experience.

Cincinnati Business Courier reported last Friday that the Edward G. Reynolds Charitable Trust, a Florence, Ky.-based private foundation, has committed $3 million to support the design and construction of an outdoor tennis facility and a pickleball facility at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights. The largest gift in NKU athletics history will result in court one of the new NKU Tennis Complex being named the Maria Reynolds Tennis Court. The new pickleball venue will be named the Reynolds Family Pickleball Facility.

Boise State Athletics announced Tuesday a $1 million planned gift from local orthopedic surgeon Richard Moore. Designated to the Bronco football enhancement fund, the gift is the seventh $1 million gift that Bronco Athletics has received since the public launch of "Unbridled: The Campaign for Boise State University." Since the launch of its Lyle Smith Society (LSS) in 2020, the department has received 18 seven-figure gifts and raised more than $30 million.

The University of Illinois Division of Intercollegiate Athletics and director of athletics Josh Whitman to announced last Friday a $1 million gift from the Irwin Family Foundation in support of the Fighting Illini Center for Excellence, located in the Northeast Tower of Memorial Stadium. The current renovation project of existing academic spaces will provide a progressive state-of-the-art learning environment for more than 500 Illinois student-athletes. Additions include the latest learning and audio-visual experiences, as well as small collaboration rooms, a group study room, lecture/conference space, and individual tutor and office spaces that can be used for one-on-one interaction.

Total amount of these gifts:

$15,000,000

Running total for 2025:

$37,503,500

Total amount tracked by AB Today in 2024:

$943,830,339

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