Volume 6, No. 17

DALLAS A&M CLUB STEPS UP WITH $100,000 PLEDGE By Rusty Burson

The recent success of Coaches Night in "Big D" is helping to generate a big donation to The Championship Vision capital campaign.

The Dallas A&M Club, which originally pledged $25,000 to the campaign, recently announced that it is increasing the pledge to $100,000. The money will go toward funding and naming a reading lab in the South End Zone Football Complex and Academic Center.

"For almost 100 years now, our coaches have been directly involved with helping us raise our monies that we give back to the school," said Riley Couch, chairman of the board of the Dallas A&M Club. "So, (the donation) was almost like rewarding them for some of the efforts they have made to make our Coaches Night a success. Our biggest fundraiser each year has always been events that they participate in.

"Some of our younger former students within the Dallas A&M Club have taken over our Coaches Night and increased the revenues dramatically. Again, we would not be able to attract the donors, participants, sponsors and so forth without the participation of our coaches. It’s all centered around them."

In turn, the Dallas A&M Club is sending its monies back to A&M to help not just the football coaches and players, but all student-athletes. The new end zone facility will feature an elaborate academic center that will be used by all student-athletes.

The timing of the announcement was also significant, Couch pointed out. The Dallas A&M Club will soon celebrate its 100th anniversary, making a $100,000 pledge rather fitting.

"All of us who are active in activities regarding Texas A&M are familiar with the needs and the benefits that are derived from this capital campaign," Couch said. "As we approach our 100th anniversary, we wanted to do some sort of signature event.

"We have numerous endowed scholarships down there now. We have a couple of President’s Endowed Scholarships, we have a 12th Man Foundation Endowed Scholarship and a Corps Scholarship. But we recognized that in no way could we impact as many students by doing another individual scholarship as we could by underwriting this reading lab.

"By doing this, we could help more than 600 student-athletes, both male and female, who could be using it for an unlimited amount of time. We wanted to direct our monies toward academic support, and we believe that by doing a significant gift to the South End Zone’s Academic Center we would be impacting hundreds of students each year."

Couch, the vice president in Comerica’s asset-based lending division, says he hopes the pledge of the Dallas A&M Club challenges other clubs to do the same.

"We definitely want to challenge the other clubs to do the same thing," he said. "Again, it is academically-oriented. It does support student-athletes, and we have always felt that the athletic department is the window to the university and brings in so much attention to the university.

"I go back to the studies to the late 1980s regarding the economic impact of the A&M athletic department. At that particular time, A&M had just admitted its first 7,000-member freshman class. The major reason given was back-to-back Southwest Conference football championships. That just goes to show you hoe important successful athletic programs can be for the greater good of the university. And to continue to succeed, the student-athletes need academic support.

"We hope the big A&M clubs like Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Fort Worth will follow suit," Couch continued. "But we also hope to spill over into the mid-size cities and smaller communities. I came from a small area, and I know how they work, too. I really hope this has a waterfall effect."

CAMPAIGN UPDATE

As of early November, The Championship Vision capital campaign had generated more than $33 million in donations and pledges. The initial five-year goal of The Championship Vision, a joint effort of the Texas A&M athletic department and the 12th Man Foundation, was to raise $35 million for across-the-board improvements and additions to the existing athletic facilities.

The goal, however, has been raised to $50 million based upon improvements and modifications incorporated from architects, engineers, campus officials and coaches.

"We’re very excited about how well the campaign is progressing," said Miles Marks, executive director and CEO of the 12th Man Foundation. "The impact is already apparent through several completed facility enhancements, but we still need to finish strong to ensure that construction on major projects begins as soon as possible."

The West Campus facilities, the first priority being addressed by The Championship Vision, will feature locker rooms for softball, soccer, men’s and women’s track and men’s and women’s cross country. The facilities will also feature auxiliary coaches offices, officials dressing space, visiting team dressing rooms and meeting rooms.

Initial phases of the construction process on the West Campus facilities have already begun.

The South End Zone Football Complex and Academic Center, the centerpiece of The Championship Vision capital campaign, will include state-of-the art facilities like a players lounge, football locker rooms, team meeting rooms, training facilities, and an academic center for all student-athletes that will include tutorial rooms, computer labs, a career development center and more.

The focus now is on raising the necessary funds to begin construction of the end zone facility. "We still need to raise roughly $9 million for the south end zone," said Nick McGuire, the12th Man Foundation’s director of major gifts. "We are extremely confident that we will do this, but the issue at hand now is timing. For us to begin construction early next year, we must receive the pledges as soon as possible."

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