****UPDATE: This article has been updated following the university’s release about the Koman family’s donation.****
After standing on UNC’s campus for nearly a year, the football program’s practice facility has been given a new name.
The university announced on Thursday a $15 million gift had been made by Jim Koman, who is former UNC football player Bill Koman’s son, and his wife Jennifer. The gift will help establish the Bill Koman Game Plan for Success within the football program, a comprehensive development program to prepare players for life following their time at Carolina. The gift will also name the practice facility the Bill Koman Practice Complex.
According to the university, the Koman’s donation is the largest single gift in the history of The Rams Club and UNC Athletics.
“My father was always a competitor on and off the field,” said Jim Koman in a statement the athleticsĀ department released. “He believed that hard work, discipline and never being satisfied with second best not only prepared you for competition, but it also prepared you most importantly for life after sports. Carolina gave my father an education second to none, and without that education he would never have been so successful in the business world after pro football ended.”
Programming and training of the Bill Koman Game Plan will focus on preparing UNC football players for their college career through academic assessment and studying. The initiative will also help teach skills preparation, leadership development, community involvement and how to earn career opportunities.
A photo from InsideCarolina shared on Wednesday revealed the new signage on the facility’s front.
Bill Koman, who played linebacker for the Tar Heels in the early 1950s, passed away at the age of 85 in late 2019. He played in the NFL for 12 years, making the Pro Bowl twice in his career. Jim Koman also played football while attending UNC in the mid-1980s.
Bill and his wife Joan have another part of the UNC campus named after them in addition to the football facility. A $1 million gift from the pair led to the brick path between Fetzer Hall and the Stallings-Evans Sports Medicine Center that connects South Road and Stadium Drive being completed in 2011. A stone with a dedication plaque sits beside the walkway, calling it ‘Koman Way.’
Photo via GoHeels.
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