Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale, Olympian Brooke Sweat lead five inductees into FGCU Athletics Hall of Fame
There used to be nothing but trees and dirt.
Brooke Sweat remembered, growing up down Corkscrew Road.
In two-plus decades since Florida Gulf Coast University athletics started, one road was created — Ben Hill Griffin Parkway — and so many roads now lead to Southwest Florida's Division I school.
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"I grew up right down the road on Corkscrew and Alico," Sweat said Friday. "This is really my home, so they built this in my backyard. Now for this moment to happen, it's just truly a blessing."
In November, FGCU honored its most famous sports team — the 2012-13 Dunk City men's basketball one that became the first No. 15 seed to make the Sweet Sixteen.
Friday, it honored three trailblazers and two athletes who were around when there was nothing resembling a city, into the FGCU Athletics Hall of Fame's inaugural class.
Ben Hill Griffin III donated acreage for the university itself, and the on-campus arena bears his company Alico's name. Former President Bill Merwin was sports-centric, to the point he made the decision to push the school to pursue becoming NCAA Division I. And Duane Swanson Sr. more than backed up that decision financially, with baseball's Swanson Stadium carrying his name, but his influence went so much farther than that.
All three have passed — Griffin in July 2020, and both Merwin and Swanson in 2011, with the latter's funeral services being held in Alico Arena, the only person's to have been in there.
Friday was about what they had passed on — to Southwest Florida and to FGCU's student-athletes like Chris Sale, the 32-year-old star pitcher for the Boston Red Sox who was at FGCU from 2008-10, and Sweat, a 32016 Olympic beach volleyball player who played indoor volleyball at FGCU from 2004-07.
"I wish I held up to the other people that were getting inducted tonight," Sale said. "They really set the tone for us. Without these guys, I'm nothing. I don't have a place to play. We don't have a university to go to school at. We don't have any facility to use."
"They're iconic individuals at FGCU," FGCU athletic director Ken Kavanagh said of Griffin, Merwin and Swanson. "They're the benchmarks for everybody else to come."
Kavanagh was thankful there were two separate ceremonies honoring Dunk City early in the college basketball season, with former head coach Andy Enfield bringing the USC Trojans to Alico Arena, and Friday's.
"You put all of that energy into one night, something would've been overshadowed," he said. "I think it would've been diluted in some fashion. We didn't have to share it."
While FGCU was celebrating its athletic family, for Sale and Sweat, that family is integral in their respective families. Sale met his wife Brianne at FGCU, and Sweat met her husband Nick there. Sale's oldest son Rylan was born in 2011 while Sale was still in school.
"Basically the timeline of my oldest son's life is the growth of this school," Sale said.
But there had to be a school first before anything could grow, and Griffin's Alico, Inc., provided that with its donation of acreage, and then for athletics, with donating money for scholarships and eventually the school having the arena named after the company.
"We certainly wouldn't be the FGCU that we are today without Ben Hill Griffin," FGCU President Michael Martin said in a video tribute. "In every way his vision, his generosity, his tenacity and his ongoing support created this institution and has made it what it is today.
"This arena is part of his vision. In every way he made this all happen."
Griffin's son, who goes by Hill, accepted his father's induction, and read portions of a magazine article on the university written around 30 years ago, before it even had a name.
"We looked at our lands in Lee County and we immediately saw the possibilities," Hill Griffin said, reading from the article. "We had four miles of frontage on I-75 with two interchanges and close proximity to the international airport.
"Our company is committed to giving back to Southwest Florida. We've made our living here for more than 70 years."
Merwin was remembered for more than athletics, but his love for it played a huge role during his tenure from 1999-2007, with his son Billy accepting the induction.
Women's basketball coach Karl Smesko recounted in a video tribute when Merwin called together then-athletic director Carl McAloose and all of the coaches to ask what they each thought about the possibility of elevating the program to Division I. After other coaches were hesitant to endorse the idea, Smesko was the last, and supported it.
"Dr. Merwin stepped in and he was very succinct," Smesko said. "He just said, 'This is going to be a first-rate institution, first academically and second, we are going to be a Division I athletics program.' I think immediately after he said that, the room and the mentality just changed. Everybody just really believed at that point that he was so much behind it, that he was going to make sure that this transition was successful, and it was."
"He went for it," said Susan Evans, one of FGCU's first-ever employees and who left the school in 2021. "He turned it into a tremendous success very early on. I think FGCU Athletics is light years ahead of where it would be had Dr. Merwin not been here as president at FGCU."
Swanson called head baseball coach Dave Tollett and supporting its program his "expensive hobby." Then-fundraising leader Butch Perchan and Tollett spent quite a bit of time with Swanson.
"His vision far exceeded what our vision was," Perchan said in a video tribute.
Swanson's widow Cookie and his son Duane Jr. accepted the induction.
"I do know my husband is here tonight," she said. "He would not miss this for anything."
Former assistant volleyball coach Danny Mahy said Sweat, who starred at Canterbury School, was the first recruit he met. He remembered her playing through the pain of a knee injury to lead the Eagles to an upset of Tampa in the Division II national tournament.
Toughing it out through injuries wasn't an issue for Sweat. While trying to qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games, Sweat suffered a shoulder injury, but her and teammate Lauren Fendrick were facing a key qualification match in Poland. Sweat decided to play, and served underhand. The pair won.
"She absolutely bamboozled them," Fendrick said in a video presentation.
Sweat's family — both parents, two brothers, and sister Holly, who also played at FGCU — were there Friday. There weren't all going to be originally, though, but one of them slipped Thursday night and asked her what the dress code was for the ceremony.
"It's very surreal for me," Sweat said of being inducted.
Sweat remembered that part of the area that's now a development near FGCU was her dad's rock quarry.
"I spent my elementary and middle school summers pulling weeds, eating Cuban sandwiches from the food truck, and jumping off high lifts into the lake," she said in her speech. "Don't worry, we had our little sister on gator watch.
"Never did I ever imagine that that little school on Ben Hill Griffin Parkway would change my life forever."
Sale is more than a former national player of the year for the Eagles who went on to be the 13th pick in the MLB draft, or a seven-time All-Star, or a World Series champion with the Boston Red Sox. He has become one of the school's top donors, including $1 million during its Night at the Nest fundraiser in 2019 and a videoboard at Swanson Stadium that debuted last season.
"Everyone thinks I do a lot for this place, and I come back and whatever it is, but this place has done more for me than I'll ever be able to give back," he said.
But Sale did give everything while he was at FGCU, too. Tollett recalled a game when there were 26 Major League Baseball scouts to watch Sale pitch, and one of Sale's teammates finally let on to Tollett that Sale had been going behind the dugout and getting sick between innings. Tollett went back and found Sale, and told him his future career was too important to be out pitching when he was sick.
"Coach, there's 27 guys in that dugout that count on me to win on Friday night, you're not pulling me out," Sale said.
Part of what drives Sale about FGCU like that is it was the only Division I school to make him an offer.
"I love this place with all of my heart because they loved me with all of their heart when no one else did," he said.
Sale kept on giving Friday, footing the bill for some of a number of baseball alumni to attend the ceremony. Saturday he'll do the same as the face for the Laces of Love fundraiser at the women's/men's basketball doubleheader.
"There's so many things going on here that I can't help but smile," Sale said. "I can't help but be proud and appreciative, and just lucky."
Griffin, Merwin and Swanson all played huge roles in FGCU getting off the ground to the heights it enjoys now. Sale and Sweat raised those into World Series champions and the Olympic Games.
"I watched this road be built out here — Ben Hill Griffin Parkway," Sweat said. "I watched it being built and now being inducted into the hall of fame with him and the other amazing people, it's just crazy."
"They're the guys that paved the way," Sale said. "This was a dirt road and they're the ones that paved it for us to go down."
There used to be no roads leading to FGCU. But those who built them, and two of the best to drive on them were honored in the Athletics Hall of Fame's first class — a first class one.
Greg Hardwig is a sports reporter for the Naples Daily News and The News-Press. Follow him on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter: @NDN_Ghardwig, email him at ghardwig@naplesnews.com. Support local journalism with this special subscription offer at https://cm.naplesnews.com/specialoffer/
This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale, Olympian Brooke Sweat lead 5 to FGCU Hall
