Creighton University broke ground on its Sports Performance Center, an approximately 50,000-square-foot facility for the University’s 300 student-athletes, coaches and staff. The center, part of Creighton’s $300 million Fly Together initiative, will be completed by 2027 and located at 20th and Burt Streets.
The Sports Performance Center will be the crown jewel of Creighton’s emerging Athletic Village, a campus within a campus that will encompass the athletic facilities The Ruth Scott Training Center, D.J. Sokol Arena, Ryan Athletic Center, the McDermott Center and fields. The center will feature approximately 10,000 square feet of new strength and conditioning space, an outdoor training area, a dining hall catering to the specific nutritional needs of student-athletes, areas for academic advising, sports medicine, and psychology services, and gathering spaces that reflect the University’s commitment to formation through community.
Creighton President the Rev. Daniel S. Hendrickson, SJ, Ph.D., said that the Sports Performance Center’s design will embrace one of the University’s core values: cura personalis, caring for the whole person — in this case, caring for the whole student-athlete.
“Student-athletes who come to Creighton want something more than athletics,” Hendrickson said. “They want great academic programs. They want beautiful spaces. They want opportunities to develop spiritually. With the Sports Performance Center, so many essential aspects of the Creighton experience will now be available to all our student-athletes under one roof.”
The Sports Performance Center is one of the first projects of Fly Together, a donor-funded initiative to reshape Creighton’s 12-block athletic and recreational corridor with 11 new or upgraded facilities and outdoor spaces.
In September, the University announced the initiative with the largest gift in Creighton’s history: $100 million from the Heider Family Foundation. The University has raised an additional $105 million from multiple early donors and will continue to raise funds to invest in Fly Together projects. Including the Heider Family Foundation, lead donors Don C. Scott, Linda and Larry Pearson, and CL and Rachel Werner supported the Sports Performance Center.
In the evolving landscape of college athletics, building elite facilities is one of the most effective ways Creighton can continue to compete for top recruiting prospects, said Marcus Blossom, McCormick endowed athletic director.
“Fly Together, and in particular the Sports Performance Center, will attract, develop, support and maximize the talent of student-athletes across all sponsored sports,” Blossom said. “In addition to resources for revenue sharing and Name, Image and Likeness opportunities, top-tier facilities remain critical to maintaining a comprehensive athletics program that will serve the needs of our 300-plus student-athletes and take our teams to another level.”
The multifaceted nature of the Sports Performance Center will have an immediate practical impact on all Creighton Athletics programs.
Currently, all 300-plus student-athletes must schedule workouts around a single weight room, located in the McDermott Center. This results in many teams being forced to use the facility as early as 5 a.m. or late into the evening. Spacing issues have likewise limited student-athletes’ access to sports medicine, psychology services and academic advising. And unlike many universities, Creighton Athletics doesn’t have a dedicated dining hall with nutritional services.
The Sports Performance Center will address all of this on day one, Blossom said.
“The new strength and conditioning center will ensure that student-athletes can work out at a reasonable hour while also juggling their classwork, practice and travel. The dining hall will provide a space for student-athletes from all programs to come together and form stronger bonds. And new, expanded areas throughout the Sports Performance Center will give them greater access to sports medicine, mental health services and the academic counseling that will help them maintain their spectacular grades.”