Intercollegiate Athletics Program

Director: Edgar N. Johnson  

Director of development: Kathleen Houghton

(302) 831-6276, [kathh@udel.edu]

Campaign for Delaware goal: $7.5 million

Gifts and commitments as of Aug. 1: $11.97 million

Outstanding needs:

The University of Delaware sponsors a 23-sport intercollegiate athletics program, consisting of 12 sports for women and 11 for men. The goal is to assure that each of those programs has the resources to award the total number of scholarships allowed in that sport by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

The University currently awards the equivalent of 175 scholarships to athletes, a number that represents only about 63 percent of the 276.7 the NCAA allows. Ultimately, the goal of the Intercollegiate Athletics Program is to fully endow as many of these scholarships as possible. To fully endow the total 276.7 scholarships at today's costs would require an endowment of $116 million.

Recent examples of generous donors making a difference in the program:

• The purchase of new, state-of-the-art video equipment for the football program was made possible in large part due to the generosity of the Christie Family Foundation, funded by brothers Todd J., AS '86, and Christopher J., AS '84, Christie. The Christies also have created an endowed fund to support the needs of the men's basketball program.
  
  
• Seven named endowed scholarships to benefit the baseball program have been created by the following individuals: R.R.M. III and Stephanie Carpenter; Dallas, BE '56, and Sylvia, CHEP '60, Green; Matt, EG '68, and Carol Minker; Tom, BE '69, and Barbara Palmer; Homer D., EG '60, and Nancy L., CHEP '59, Reihm; Harold D. II, BE '64, and Barbara K., CHEP '64, Smith and their family; and W. Alvon, AS '58, and Helen Sparks.
  
  
• * Gifts of unrestricted dollars to the University of Delaware Athletic Fund have provided for the purchase of video equipment for the men's and women's basketball programs and
  of new weights for the Chuck Hall Weight Room in the Bob Carpenter Center. Such unrestricted donations also have assisted the men's and women's tennis teams by funding their annual spring training trips.