UND breaks ground on Fritz Pollard Center additions
Aug. 21—GRAND FORKS — University officials and benefactors gathered to break ground at the site of a planned addition to the Fritz Pollard Athletic Center on Monday, the culmination of years of planning.
The addition, which will be called the Nodak Insurance Company Sports Performance Center due to the company's sponsorship of the project, will include a new weight room and locker rooms, as well as athletic offices, an academic center and sports medicine facilities.
UND President Andrew Armacost relayed an anecdote about
Fritz Pollard Jr. — the facility's namesake
, a three-time all conference football player at UND and 1936 Olympic bronze medalist in the 110-meter hurdles — as an example of the progress the university has made in revitalizing its athletic facilities.
"If you think about the significance of the railroad yard here, when we dedicated the Pollard Center, Fritz's grandson said he used to run on top of the box cars," he said. "If you think about that in the '30s and '40s, that was A, very cold, and B, not a practical way to train. Now you think about what we've grown into."
Armacost said he became aware of the aging athletic facilities at the former Memorial Stadium on his first visit to campus in fall of 2019.
"It was unsatisfactory," he said. "We heard stories of people saying they'd rather change in their cars than at the facilities we were offering. Now we're on the precipice of something amazing."
UND Athletic Director Bill Chaves thanked donors for their support in funding the project, and said the facilities will give UND an edge on its competition.
"We have so many people to thank, we could literally be here until this building is built," he said. "This project wasn't possible without our donors — it's 100% philanthropic. This addition will give our coaches an amazing opportunity to recruit and retain the best student athletes for the next half century. It's simply a game changer."
Jim Alexander, president of Nodak Insurance Company, said the decision to partner with UND on the project was easy.
"Part of Nodak Insurance's mission is to give back to the communities that we live and work in," he said. "When the opportunity to partner with UND and this building came up, the answer was not difficult. Who wouldn't want to partner with an athletic department that prides itself on excellence?"
In May,
when the groundbreaking date was announced
, Armacost said the $20 million upgrades are part of a "really exciting project."
"If you think about the amount of work and effort our student athletes put forward both on the field and in the classroom, having facilities that are worthy of their competitiveness is an important step for the university to take," he said at the time.
