Mizzou receives $10 million gift for football facility

COLUMBIA, MO. • Missouri’s new football team facility is closer to reality — $10 million closer.

On Thursday, the athletics department announced a $10 million donation from the Kansas City Sports Trust to go toward the new football facility Mizzou has discussed building for several years.

New athletics director Jim Sterk, whose term officially began Sept. 1, began discussing facility plans with football coach Barry Odom the day he arrived on campus last month.

“We are so pleased to make this announcement today,” Sterk said in a statement. “The Kansas City Sports Trust has stepped up with a tremendous leadership gift that demonstrates true philanthropic giving. We’re so appreciative of this support, and we’re hopeful that this will encourage others to join in and help us achieve our goals of building football facilities that put us in the upper echelon of the Southeastern Conference. Making this facility become a reality is critical to our commitment in providing one of the best student-athlete experiences in the country.”

Mizzou’s press release described the donation as “important starting point” to kick off the fundraising campaign for the football facility. MU will announce details at a later date once plans are approved. Depending on the scope of the project, the facility could cost between $100-150 million, multiple sources said.

After Mizzou joined the SEC, former coach Gary Pinkel first started talking about his wishes to build a new team facility complete with new locker rooms, coaches’ offices, meeting rooms, dining areas and academic resources. Pinkel wanted the project built just south of Memorial Stadium and possibly tied into an addition to the stadium’s south bowl. Former athletics director Mack Rhoades favored a more inclusive building that would incorporate all MU athletes at a different location. In the spring, after Odom had replaced Pinkel as head coach, Rhoades said all of the school’s proposed locations for the project centered around the site of the current team facility, the Mizzou Athletics Training Complex, located west of the stadium across Providence Road. Rhoades has since left for the AD job at Baylor. It’s unclear if plans have changed for desired location.

In June 2012, the Kansas City Sports Trust gave Mizzou $30 million for a facilities overhaul to coincide with the school’s entry into the SEC. The donation was part of the school’s $102 million facility’s upgrade that renovated Memorial Stadium, baseball’s Taylor Stadium, softball’s University Field, plus the school’s golf and tennis facilities.

In a radio interview Thursday morning on 93.9 FM, Sterk said Mizzou secured the $10 million gift from an anonymous donor last week. In 2012, MU said the trust was administered by Kansas City law firm Stinson, Morrison and Hecker, which has since merged with Minneapolis firm Leonard Street Deinard to form Stinson Leonard Street. The Kansas City Sports Group was formed in the early 2000s and first gave MU $10 million to renovate the MATC more than a decade ago.

“The Kansas City Sports Trust has such a generous history of giving to Mizzou, and we’re very grateful for their continued commitment,” Odom said. “We’ve said from the start that we can’t do this alone – we need support from our fans to get where we want to be, and this is an amazing statement of support. I’m excited to get to work with our administration and our architects to develop plans that will showcase Mizzou in a first-class manner.”

Dave Matter

@dave_matter on Twitter

dmatter@post-dispatch.com

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