Very good read. Something we don't hear much about.
A Welcome Funding Source for College Athletics: Women Investing in Women’s Sports
As the 50th anniversary of Title IX approaches, former female athletes are donating millions to build facilities and endow scholarships and coaching positions at their alma maters.
The Carol Roberts Field House at Yale has amenities that its namesake could not have dreamed of when she was an athlete at Yale in the 1970s.Credit...Jessica Hill for The New York Times
By Jeré Longman
“Like from a construction site,” she said with a laugh. When a trailer was brought in that contained a sink and multiple stalls, she said, “we thought we had arrived.”
Decades later, as chief financial officer of International Paper, Ms. Roberts, 59, a mechanical engineer by training, donated $4 million of a $6 million project to build a field house for Yale’s female athletes between the field hockey and softball fields. It opened in 2018 and includes home and visitor locker rooms, a training room, coaches’ offices and an observation deck for spectators.
As the 50th anniversary of Title IX approaches, the pioneering athletes who first benefited from the 1972 federal gender-equity law are now in their 50s or 60s, and some of them have gained sizable wealth as more women have entered the executive suite. They have created a subset of university giving, donating millions back to their alma maters as primary donors to build facilities and endow scholarships and coaching positions.
Lisa Palmer, 51, a former star softball pitcher at Virginia who is now president and chief financial officer of a real estate investment trust, endowed a softball scholarship there in 2014. Now she is the lead donor, with her mother, for a $10 million softball stadium scheduled to open at the university in March.
At Indiana University, women have given half of the philanthropic funding — at least $52 million of $105 million — for an ongoing capital campaign for athletics, including about $13 million of the $15 million donated to build a center focused on physical and mental wellness, nutrition and leadership and life skills.
The donations also include $40 million given in 2013 for the renovation of Indiana’s arena for men’s and women’s basketball by Cindy Simon Skjodt, whose father, Melvin Simon, was an owner of the Indiana Pacers and a leading mall developer.
“There has been a bit of a surge,” said Fred Glass, Indiana’s athletic director. By contrast, he said, the number of women who were lead donors for the university’s previous capital campaign for sports, from 2006 to 2010, “would be closer to zero.”
Sports philanthropy reflects that women who have made their own money, inherited fortunes or outlived their spouses are controlling more wealth than ever in the United States and are directing it to their favorite causes, including higher education, said David Callahan, the founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy, a digital media site.
“Philanthropy is very often a joint couple activity,” Mr. Callahan said. “But there are more women donors who are acting autonomously as philanthropists.”
In fiscal 2018, a record $46.7 billion was donated to American universities, earmarked for areas like scholarships, financial need, technology and medical science research, according to a survey by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Against that larger backdrop, Mr. Callahan said, “You can see how athletics would be a beneficiary.”
Women’s athletics have been traditionally underfunded. Compared with donations like the $165 million that the oilman T. Boone Pickens gave in 2005 to his alma mater, Oklahoma State, which, among other things, helped revitalize the university’s football program, “women’s programs tend to get crumbs,” Mr. Callahan said.
Suzie Glazer Burt, 65, a third-generation member of the board of trustees at Drake University in Des Moines, decided to make a gift to the school in April. She contemplated donating $1 million to endow the women’s basketball coaching position. Then she reconsidered and gave $5 million to help increase the head coach’s salary, hire a strength and conditioning coach and enable the team to travel more often by plane instead of by bus.
According to Drake, the amount was believed to match the largest noncapital donation to a women’s basketball program.
“Women are so behind in investments and salaries,” said Ms. Glazer Burt, whose family wealth was generated in finance. “I wanted to make a statement — it’s time for women to empower women to be successful.”
Some former female athletes are making donations with spouses who also played collegiate sports.
“Back in the day, if there was a couple and he played a sport, a lot of times the couple would give to his sport,” said Ms. Chun, Yale’s athletic director. “Now, it’s both.”
Karen Robinson Keyes, 50, who played basketball at Notre Dame, and her husband, Kevin, who played tennis for the Fighting Irish and has had a long investment career, donated $5 million in 2015 to endow the women’s basketball coaching position at the university.
Cathy Bessant, 59, the chief operations and technology officer at Bank of America, donated $1 million for a $2.4 million field house for field hockey at William & Mary that is set to open in the spring. Her daughter played field hockey there and graduated in 2018. But Ms. Bessant also was the lead donor for a hockey field that bears her name at Queens University in Charlotte, N.C.
Placing a woman’s name on a sports facility signals a broader gender balance occurring in naming campus buildings around the country, Ms. Bessant said. “That balance suggests to young people that there is a path for women in athletics, for women in philanthropy, for women in business accomplishment,” she said.
Ms. Roberts, a native of Warminster, Pa., who won Ivy League titles in field hockey and softball at Yale, said she became the lead donor for the women’s field house, in part, to acknowledge the role athletics played in imparting lessons of competition, teamwork, discipline and leadership that served her in the corporate world.
During her 36 years at International Paper, from which she retired in 2017, Ms. Roberts said she kept her field hockey sticks in her closet at home as a daily reminder of strength when she got dressed. The sticks are now mounted in her study in Collierville, Tenn., outside Memphis.
“When I had that stick in my hand,” Ms. Roberts said in an interview at her home, “I was a powerful athlete who could do anything.”
She hesitated to put her first and last name on the Yale field house, she said, not wanting to appear self-serving. But she became convinced it was necessary to let female athletes know what they do is important and to realize that women could provide such facilities.
“We had to give it a name so they wouldn’t think some guy did it,” Ms. Roberts said.
A Welcome Funding Source for College Athletics: Women Investing in Women’s Sports
As the 50th anniversary of Title IX approaches, former female athletes are donating millions to build facilities and endow scholarships and coaching positions at their alma maters.
The Carol Roberts Field House at Yale has amenities that its namesake could not have dreamed of when she was an athlete at Yale in the 1970s.Credit...Jessica Hill for The New York Times
By Jeré Longman
- Dec. 3, 2019
“Like from a construction site,” she said with a laugh. When a trailer was brought in that contained a sink and multiple stalls, she said, “we thought we had arrived.”
Decades later, as chief financial officer of International Paper, Ms. Roberts, 59, a mechanical engineer by training, donated $4 million of a $6 million project to build a field house for Yale’s female athletes between the field hockey and softball fields. It opened in 2018 and includes home and visitor locker rooms, a training room, coaches’ offices and an observation deck for spectators.
As the 50th anniversary of Title IX approaches, the pioneering athletes who first benefited from the 1972 federal gender-equity law are now in their 50s or 60s, and some of them have gained sizable wealth as more women have entered the executive suite. They have created a subset of university giving, donating millions back to their alma maters as primary donors to build facilities and endow scholarships and coaching positions.
Lisa Palmer, 51, a former star softball pitcher at Virginia who is now president and chief financial officer of a real estate investment trust, endowed a softball scholarship there in 2014. Now she is the lead donor, with her mother, for a $10 million softball stadium scheduled to open at the university in March.
At Indiana University, women have given half of the philanthropic funding — at least $52 million of $105 million — for an ongoing capital campaign for athletics, including about $13 million of the $15 million donated to build a center focused on physical and mental wellness, nutrition and leadership and life skills.
The donations also include $40 million given in 2013 for the renovation of Indiana’s arena for men’s and women’s basketball by Cindy Simon Skjodt, whose father, Melvin Simon, was an owner of the Indiana Pacers and a leading mall developer.
“There has been a bit of a surge,” said Fred Glass, Indiana’s athletic director. By contrast, he said, the number of women who were lead donors for the university’s previous capital campaign for sports, from 2006 to 2010, “would be closer to zero.”
Sports philanthropy reflects that women who have made their own money, inherited fortunes or outlived their spouses are controlling more wealth than ever in the United States and are directing it to their favorite causes, including higher education, said David Callahan, the founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy, a digital media site.
“Philanthropy is very often a joint couple activity,” Mr. Callahan said. “But there are more women donors who are acting autonomously as philanthropists.”
In fiscal 2018, a record $46.7 billion was donated to American universities, earmarked for areas like scholarships, financial need, technology and medical science research, according to a survey by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Against that larger backdrop, Mr. Callahan said, “You can see how athletics would be a beneficiary.”
Women’s athletics have been traditionally underfunded. Compared with donations like the $165 million that the oilman T. Boone Pickens gave in 2005 to his alma mater, Oklahoma State, which, among other things, helped revitalize the university’s football program, “women’s programs tend to get crumbs,” Mr. Callahan said.
Suzie Glazer Burt, 65, a third-generation member of the board of trustees at Drake University in Des Moines, decided to make a gift to the school in April. She contemplated donating $1 million to endow the women’s basketball coaching position. Then she reconsidered and gave $5 million to help increase the head coach’s salary, hire a strength and conditioning coach and enable the team to travel more often by plane instead of by bus.
According to Drake, the amount was believed to match the largest noncapital donation to a women’s basketball program.
“Women are so behind in investments and salaries,” said Ms. Glazer Burt, whose family wealth was generated in finance. “I wanted to make a statement — it’s time for women to empower women to be successful.”
Some former female athletes are making donations with spouses who also played collegiate sports.
“Back in the day, if there was a couple and he played a sport, a lot of times the couple would give to his sport,” said Ms. Chun, Yale’s athletic director. “Now, it’s both.”
Karen Robinson Keyes, 50, who played basketball at Notre Dame, and her husband, Kevin, who played tennis for the Fighting Irish and has had a long investment career, donated $5 million in 2015 to endow the women’s basketball coaching position at the university.
Cathy Bessant, 59, the chief operations and technology officer at Bank of America, donated $1 million for a $2.4 million field house for field hockey at William & Mary that is set to open in the spring. Her daughter played field hockey there and graduated in 2018. But Ms. Bessant also was the lead donor for a hockey field that bears her name at Queens University in Charlotte, N.C.
Placing a woman’s name on a sports facility signals a broader gender balance occurring in naming campus buildings around the country, Ms. Bessant said. “That balance suggests to young people that there is a path for women in athletics, for women in philanthropy, for women in business accomplishment,” she said.
Ms. Roberts, a native of Warminster, Pa., who won Ivy League titles in field hockey and softball at Yale, said she became the lead donor for the women’s field house, in part, to acknowledge the role athletics played in imparting lessons of competition, teamwork, discipline and leadership that served her in the corporate world.
During her 36 years at International Paper, from which she retired in 2017, Ms. Roberts said she kept her field hockey sticks in her closet at home as a daily reminder of strength when she got dressed. The sticks are now mounted in her study in Collierville, Tenn., outside Memphis.
“When I had that stick in my hand,” Ms. Roberts said in an interview at her home, “I was a powerful athlete who could do anything.”
She hesitated to put her first and last name on the Yale field house, she said, not wanting to appear self-serving. But she became convinced it was necessary to let female athletes know what they do is important and to realize that women could provide such facilities.
“We had to give it a name so they wouldn’t think some guy did it,” Ms. Roberts said.
