ORONO, Maine (WABI) – The Black Bear Student-Athlete Experience Fund has been started “to support student-athletes and promote the continued competitiveness and excellence of the state’s only Division I program,” according to UMaine athletics.
“What we want to do is hopefully continue to draw people into the university, that positive exposure that hopefully goes well beyond athletics and towards our state. These are private and philanthropic dollars. We’re not using tuition. These aren’t state-funded dollars, not taxpayer dollars, (private fundraising is) the route that we’re headed,” said Jude Killy, athletic director.
The announcement describes how donations from fans can support direct pay to student-athletes, scholarships, nutrition, travel, and other opportunities.
“This is new for all of us. It’s new for the university. It’s new for the state of Maine. It’s not maybe as new for the rest of college athletics, but we wanted to make sure that we did that. (Secondly,) we wanted to do it at a time that it really made sense for all of our sports programs. A logical time would have been do it during our winter sports or the conclusion of them. This is just where we ended up. If we want to be a competitive Division I program, we do not have a choice,” said Killy.
Donors can let the university decide what to do with their gifts or direct them to a particular team.
“Directing it towards direct pay or towards scholarship or nutrition, or anything else, isn’t really part of the equation in terms of people supporting that fund. Those are decisions that we’ll make internally and institutionally about how we utilize the funding. So long as it’s in that account, we can use it in any one of those ways, and others that support the student-athlete experience,” said Killy.
Killy said “a couple hundred thousand” dollars has been raised so far with an aggressive, sustainable fundraising plan moving forward.
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