In 2010, the Stallings family made the primary gift that led to the Stallings-Evans Sports Medicine Center on UNC’s campus. On Saturday, the university announced the family would once again be donating to grow it further.

Don and Billie Stallings and their family all stood at the center of the Dean Smith Center at halftime of Saturday’s game to announce their gift: the Stallings-Evans Sports Medicine Complex, a 30,000 square foot research facility. The complex will house and expand the Matthew Gfeller  Sport-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center, as well as the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes.

Currents plans are for the sports medicine complex to be built as an addition to Fetzer Hall, a building on South Road near the already-existing Stallings-Evans Sports Medicine Center. The use of the complex for both the Matthew Gfeller Center and Center for the Study of Retired Athletes will further their ability to work together on research, as well as provide more opportunities for UNC students.

“The new complex also gets Carolina closer to its aspirations for a new clinical program that addresses the treatment of patients dealing with symptoms related to chronic traumatic brain injury and neurodegenerative disease,” reads the university release about the gift. “This gift will also allow for expansion of the existing sports medicine programming to allow more of the general student body to have access to these state-of-the-art services.”

Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz, who co-directs the Gfeller Center, said the Stallings’ gift helps building on their remarkable legacy and will help UNC stay at the forefront of research and medicine.

“Our work in traumatic brain injury research and novel treatments has had a global impact because of the Stallings,” said Guskiewicz in the release, “and we are grateful for their commitment. Building on our culture of collaboration here at Carolina, this gift will enable us to continue that impact for years to come.”

The Stallings have been extensively involved at the university, with Don previously serving two terms on its Board of Trustees and Billie chairing the UNC School of Medicine’s cardiovascular medicine advisory board. They named both this complex and the existing sports medicine center after their son, Eddie Evans, who was born with a congenital heart defect and grew up a UNC fan.

“Sports medicine was very special to Eddie,” Billie Stallings said. “He wanted to be an athlete, but his heart condition wouldn’t allow it. He was a student athletic trainer for all sports at the Arendell Parrott Academy in Kinston, North Carolina, and always said he was going to excel in sports medicine and win a scholarship to UNC–Chapel Hill. This complex is the perfect tribute to him, because of the wonderful work it will do in his name on behalf of what he loved.”

The university said the Stallings’ gift goes towards the fundraising accrued for the Campaign for Carolina. Launched in 2017, the fundraising campaign now stands at $3.1 billion of its $4.25 billion goal.

Photo via Jeyhoun Allebaugh, University Development.

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