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Farmers Bank Gives $500K for YSU Athletic Complex
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Youngstown State University soccer player Karlee Kline is looking forward to no longer having to share a field with the school's football team. "They would get earlier practice times so we would have to practice at night," says Kline, a freshman from Clinton Township, Mich., who is studying to become a nurse.
The women's soccer team will no longer have to practice and play on the field of Stambaugh Stadium after construction is completed on YSU's new sports complex, which is expected to be finished next year. In addition to a field for the women's soccer team, the complex will include a softball field, a 400-meter track, concessions, box seating, and lighting for evening use, says YSU President Cynthia Anderson.
YSU held a news conference this morning to announce the launch of the complex and the first financial gift toward the $4 million-plus project, a $500,000 contribution from Farmers National Bank. The portion of the complex for the soccer field will be named Farmers National Bank field, pending approval of the YSU board of trustees in March.
"It seems like any time we have an initiative coming forward, Farmers National also comes forward," Anderson remarked.
"This is a great moment for us," said John Gulas, president and chief executive officer of Farmers National Banc Corp. and Farmers National Bank. Contributing to the sports complex plays into the four pillars it considers as part of its mission statement including, importantly for this morning's event, community.
"Without a vibrant community we wouldn’t have the customers, the employees or the shareholders," Gulas said, naming the three other pillars.
"Shareholders purchase stock because of the success of the company but they also look at the success of the community," he continued. When he talks to institutional investors, for example, "they want to know about this community. They want to know what's happening in this Valley. They want to know about the educational system. They want to know about the economy and they want to know why they should be investing in this area," he said.
Gulas added that YSU is one of the "best places to develop and grow the people we need" to take serve Farmers' customers.
Any university has two major recruiting tools, Anderson said, its academic programs, and "the looks of the campus" and what it has to offer the individuals who want to be admitted to the university.
The project site -- a former neighborhood of deteriorating residential properties that YSU acquired over time -- has made a tremendous aesthetic difference in the area. The properties are demolished and the land prepared for construction. The site is along Fifth Avenue, one of the gateway corridors to the university and into the city's central business district.
"We just have a bunch of dirt out there and it already looks better than it did in the past," Anderson observed. In addition to being a "significant attraction" for students interested in intramural sports, the complex provides "a definite benefit" to YSU's women's soccer and softball teams and the track team, and for high school teams who are expected to make use of the complex as well.
On behalf of Farmers, Gulas said he wanted to thank YSU for the focus on women's athletics in particular. "[We] want to make sure that we're part of that story," he said.
R. Scott Evans, vice president for university advancement, pointed out that YSU has received nearly $6 million in gifts and commitments since July 1. "That is an outstanding number," he said.
With Farmers' $500,000 contribution secured, YSU athletic and development office personnel "will be hitting the ground big time" to solicit the remaining funds necessary to build the complex, Anderson said.
"I anticipate that it will go smoothly. We have some very good prospects."
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.