Cover story
Center of the Action
Prep president Ken Boller, S.J. and lead donor Guy Perkins, ’86 cut the ribbon at the Perkins Athletic Center dedication. They were flanked, left to right, by: Jack Caulfield, ’71, P’00,’03, VP for finance; Jim DeAngelo, ’85, principal; Jim Horan, ’70, VP for planning and principal giving, Phil McGovern, ’76, P’11, chairman of the Board of Trustees, and Rich Hansen. P’03,’09, athletic director and head football coach.
It took just about eight months to transform a patch of dirt alongside Prep’s Keenan Field into a stateof-the-art training facility that will support five different sports across all three athletic seasons. It took about 18 hours following the Perkins Athletic Center’s dedication in late September, for the first “tenants,” to begin making most of it. Even the weather was perfect. Yes, it was that kind of evening on September 22, 2016 – 78 degrees under a cloudless sky – when some 220 special guests gathered on James F. Keenan, S.J. Field for the dedication ceremony and official opening of the William O. Perkins III, ’86 Athletic Center. This
new 16,000 square foot structure, located adjacent to the field, is Prep’s first new facility built from the ground up since the opening of Burke Hall half a century earlier, thus providing a most worthy cause for celebration. Also celebrated was the fact that this ceremony was taking place just 32 weeks following the groundbreaking ceremony on a frigid morning last January.
“Today’s dedication is just another step in trying to provide the very best resources to the young men who are entrusted to our care,” noted Prep president Ken Boller, S.J., during his remarks. “We have first-rate academics, first-rate service and retreat programs, and first-rate athletic programs and activities. This new center is a wonderful complement to the recent and ongoing improvements to our academic buildings.”
The new building will provide a home for five of Prep’s 19 sports – football in the fall, wrestling in the winter, and baseball, lacrosse, and rugby in the spring – while also providing a suite of offices for the athletic department’s staff. Specifically, the three-story facility includes a state-of-the-art weight training center, as well as a large open-span room on the third floor that 6 FALL 2016 n SPPREP.ORG n PREP MAGAZINE