Texas State Football Performance Center finds support from donors

The Texas State Football Performance Center has been receiving many donations over the past year including a $4 million donation by an anonymous donor in March.

Though the project started take life during the tenure of both Athletic Director Don Coryell and Texas State President Kelly Damphousse, the planning of the complex has it’s origins during the mid 2010s.

“It started a long time ago before Kelly was here and before I became athletic director,” Coryell said. “Those talks have been going on for several years but what has been driving it is our student athletic experience. It’s the number one thing. We have to improve our weight room, training facilities, and add team and position meeting rooms. There are going to be some fan elements as well but the most important part is the student athlete experience and making sure we have a building that we can recruit to and functions for our student athletes.”

The Texas State Football Performance Center is a $37 million renovation of the south end zone complex complete with a 8,000 square foot weight room, new training room, position meeting rooms, coaches locker room, expanded team locker room, and a potential hospitality area.

With the amount of money needed to complete the project, much of the funding for the project is driven by the support of the donors.

“You are limited by the revenue you have,” Damphousse said. “Tickets sales, private funding, the money the university makes available to you, and conference distribution. Conference distribution and ticket sales are not sufficient to fund these projects. Our private support has been solid and good. We couldn’t have built the tower without the private giving … So our private donations have been good but our ticket sales and conference distribution have not been where they need to be compared to other schools where they get 10 to 15 times the amount of money compared to what we get through conference contributions.”

Since taking over as athletic director, Coryell and his team have been going out to the alumni and fans with great success asking for the support to help what is considered to be one of the more ambitious renovations Texas State has seen.

“It’s our job to go out there and do private fundraising,” Coryell said. “That is how we know we are going to get this done. The private support for this particular project has been outstanding. We are doing things that we haven’t been able to do before which is great. Our fans understand the need and they want to see us put a winner on the football field. They are willing to get behind it … This is how we are going to accomplish what we are going to do.

One of the reasons for the surge of support has been both Coryell’s and Damphousse’s execution.

“You need a vision and a plan,” Coryell said. “You need to show why this is so important. Facilities are key to any recruiting visit we are going to have on campus, retention once our student athletes are on campus to make sure they are going to function to compete at the highest level. It’s really about showing what that need is and that it’s a part of an overall plan to turn this into a winner on the field.”

As Damphousse explains, the complex is one cog in the machine that will not only help the football program, but also the entire athletic department and the university as a whole.

“Part of the vision is to create fan amenities,’ Damphousse said. “That way the fans want to be here and are comfortable. Then you start building the facilities which helps the recruiting and then you have success on the field which brings more fans to the games so ticket sales and ticket revenue goes up. People get excited about the product and then fundraising goes up. These things are a part of a system which is the more you build, the better you get, and the more revenue you have. Football drives so much attention but the money we can generate through football allows us to fund the other sports as well. That is why we are driving so much time, attention, and fundraising for the football program because the revenue is so big.”

But the endzone complex isn’t the only project Texas State is focusing on in the future.

“We are currently putting in a strategic plan right now that correlates with the university,” Coryell said. “A couple of things that we are discussing right now and starting some fundraising are baseball/softball renovations and Kelly has the vision of building an indoor facility for all of our sports to utilize … we are working on some baseball and softball stuff right now and as soon as we are done the south end zone complex we are going to spend a lot of time talking about how we are going to get a indoor done.”

For more updates on the football center, visit www. txstfootballcenter.com