Georgia Southern fans gathered on Saturday morning, April 23 for the groundbreaking of the Anthony P. Tippins Family Indoor Practice Facility adjacent to Paulson Stadium. The Tippins family gave the lead gift for the $12.5 million project.
Their gift is the largest gift in GS Athletics history and provided the momentum to launch the fundraising for the facility. Almost 250 people have given from $27 to over 2 million and more than 30 have given over $50k. With these gifts, they have raised over $7.6 million to fund the facility, and are asking for all of Eagle Nation to pitch in and help fund the addition $5 million to complete this project.
Grice Connect live streamed the ceremony. You can watch the full ceremony below:
The 91,300-square-foot facility includes a practice area, highlighted by synthetic turf, fully-covered 120-yard regulation football field. The facility will also feature an approximately 30-yard practice area for supplemental drills. An advanced netting system will be installed to further enhance training opportunities for our student-athletes, particularly football, baseball, softball, men’s soccer, women’s soccer and women’s track and field.
The facility will have an interior height of 65 feet that will allow for a variety of practice drills (not inclusive of live punting). The practice field will have a 20-foot buffer outside the sideline perimeter that provides a safe space to conduct live play workouts.
A very special project in the GS history
"We became very interested in this project when we heard the vision for it. That and the fact it will be used for all sports, not just football, this facility will be a piece of something really big, a piece of the great athletic program that Jared Benko is putting together," said Anthony Tippins. "It will be a piece of the great university that Dr. Kyle Marrero is leading, and it will have an impact on the community, the region and I believe the country and the world."
"The most important thing we need to take away from today is that this is a statement to all of us. This is a national statement of who we are. That we are taking the next step forward. I love it when people say you can't do this. I like to say, watch this," said Clay Helton, Eagle Football Head Coach. "Because when you have elite vision, elite leadership, people that are willing to invest their resources to allow us to not do more with less, but to do more with more. That is when you go from an unbelievable product to a national product at the highest level. That is what we are doing here today."
How you can help
If you would like to help support the Anthony P. Tippins Family Indoor Practice Facility, please visit Give.GSEagles.com/IPF to make a donation today!
If you would like to talk about giving options, please contact Ben Rodriguez at [email protected] or 912-601-7892.
For more information on Georgia Southern Athletics, visit GSeagles.com.
