Harrison Center Opens to Acclaim

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — It might be an exaggeration, but only a slight one, to say that jaws dropped during tours of the new Harrison Family Olympic Sports Center at the Ramon W. Breeden Athletic Grounds—and not only those of the University of Virginia student-athletes who’ll use the facility.

“In my wildest dreams, I never would have envisioned this,” Kent Merritt said as he surveyed the 12,800-square foot strength and conditioning room at the Harrison Center.

Merritt played running back for UVA in the early 1970s, when the football team was housed at University Hall. That program moved from U-Hall to the McCue Center in 1991 and to the Molly and Robert Hardie Football Operations Center last year.

About 16 months after the grand opening of the Hardie Center came the celebration of another milestone for UVA Athletics. Under sunny skies Thursday evening, the Harrison Center officially opened. Its features include locker rooms for eight programs; meeting rooms and lounges; areas for strength and conditioning, sports medicine, equipment and sports nutrition; staff offices; and an outdoor terrace.

“This facility will transform the student-athlete experience for years to come,” said Kevin Miller, executive director of the Virginia Athletics Foundation.

“Everything we do as coaches and student-athletes will be enhanced by this facility,” said Steve Swanson, who’s in his 26^th season leading the women’s soccer program.

Over his two-plus decades in Charlottesville, Swanson said, he’s watched all of UVA’s teams compete, and he’s seen “that win or lose, there is an investment here at Virginia from our student-athletes that you just don’t see at other institutions—investment from our student-athletes not only to themselves but to their teammates and, above all, this university.

“Our student-athletes love competing for the University of Virginia, and they are fully invested in the process of competing for national championships. The message the University and athletic department is sending back to them with this new facility is: We are invested with you. We see the value of your hard work. We see the importance of athletics within the University community, and we support you. This is truly a powerful message, and my hope is all our student-athletes take this in so it might spark an even greater investment in the future.”

Miller was the first of several speakers during the 35-minute ceremony Thursday. Following him was director of athletics Carla Williams, who addressed an audience that included UVA’s interim president, Paul Mahoney, who also spoke; members of the Board of Visitors; other University officials; and hundreds of current student-athletes and their coaches.

“The last two days have been more emotional than I expected them to be,” Williams said. “They’ve been emotional because over the last two days we have given the athletic teams that have their locker rooms in the facility a sneak peek at their locker rooms and weight room and training room and a couple of other spaces … Seeing the expressions of joy and excitement and immense gratitude on the faces of our student athletes and coaches was a blessing, and it was a reminder of why we are here. We are here to serve student-athletes and to serve this great university, and the Harrison Center is a testament to that effort, that work and that excellence.”

The $75 million project includes the renovation of the McCue Center, to which the Harrison Center is connected. ZGF Architects designed the project, whose construction manager was Barton Malow. The lead gift was a $25 million donation from the family of the late David and Mary Harrison, two of UVA’s most generous benefactors.

“There aren’t enough words to express our deep gratitude to the Harrison families and the Harrison Family Foundation,” Williams said. “You stepped in when we needed it the most. Your gift restored hope and revived our will to make sure that this project was done.”

Among the others Williams singled out in her remarks was a former UVA president.

“I’d also like to thank my friend Jim Ryan for his support of this facility and all of UVA Athletics during his time as president, which coincided with a tumultuous period for college athletics,” Williams said. “Most of all, I want to thank every donor who contributed to these efforts, especially the Harrison family, whose generosity has touched nearly every part of the University and now spans multiple generations.”

The official groundbreaking for a new Olympic sports facility was held on June 1, 2023. Some 28 months later, the Harrison Center opened. All 27 teams at UVA will benefit from the facility, Williams said.

“I’m glad this day is here,” Swanson said before the ceremony, which preceded his team’s ACC showdown with Duke at Klöckner Stadium. (The No. 5 Cavaliers defeated the No. 2 Blue Devils 3-1.)

For many years, the locker rooms for UVA’s field hockey, men’s cross country, men’s track & field, women’s cross country, women’s track & field, men’s lacrosse, women’s lacrosse, men’s soccer, women’s soccer and rowing programs were in University Hall.

U-Hall deteriorated significantly as it aged, however, and by the end of 2018 those eight programs had moved into locker rooms at the new Training Grounds, a group of trailers set up on the site of the former Onesty Hall parking lot. (U-Hall was demolished in the spring of 2019.)

Also based at the Training Grounds were units devoted to strength and conditioning, academic advising, sports nutrition and equipment. All are being relocated to the Harrison Center.

During their seven years at the Training Grounds, the eight programs combined to capture two NCAA and 10 ACC team championships, win five individual NCAA titles, and reach eight Final Fours.

“Unbelievable examples of resilience and a defiant resistance to making excuses,” Williams said.

While based in the Training Grounds, the men’s lacrosse program won NCAA titles in 2019 and 2021. The Harrison Center will help the Wahoos in their pursuit of the program’s eighth NCAA championship, head coach Lars Tiffany said Thursday.

“What I’m most excited about is how together we will now be,” Tiffany said, “the interaction with the student-athletes of our team. We certainly see them a lot, but now we get to them more. Now we get to bump in them in the hallways as they’re going from the training room back to the locker room, to go up to nutrition.

“My whole quest is to create a singular organism: 45 men, five coaches, the support staff. A building like this, with cohesiveness and bringing us all together, this is magical.”

The reaction of his players when they toured the Harrison Center for the first time?

“Christmas morning,” Tiffany said, smiling. “That joy that you see on a young child’s face when they wake up on Christmas morning? That’s what I saw on the faces of my men.”

If not for the COVID-19 pandemic, Swanson said, “I’d like to think we would have been here in here sooner. But the way I look at it is, maybe the Training Grounds is a gift. Not that we wouldn’t have appreciated this, but we appreciate a little bit more now. Where [Training Grounds] was isolated, this will be very interactive.”

The speakers included two student-athletes: Mia Abello from field hockey and Umberto Pelà from men’s soccer.

“This center creates new potential for every individual team to excel with great purpose,” said Abello, a junior from Houston. “At UVA, growing where we are planted is a gift and a responsibility. The Harrison Center is not simply an opportunity for us to reach new limits, but even more than that, it’s a challenge. A challenge to show up every day and give relentless effort. A challenge to bounce back with confidence. A challenge to represent UVA with honor on the field and beyond.”

Pelà, a senior from Milan, Italy, touched on what he believes makes the University special.

“There’s a competitive drive here that’s hard to describe unless you live it,” Pelà said. “You feel it every single day in the classroom, in the field, in the weight room. You’re surrounded by people who expect the best from you and who push you to expect the best from yourself.

“Which brings me to today. The Harrison Olympic Sports Center isn’t just a new building. It means raising the standard even further for what it means to compete at UVA. For us as student-athletes, it’s more than walls, fields and an equipment room. It represents opportunity.”

In his remarks, Swanson looked over one of at the Harrison family members seated in the front row.

“Mrs. Marjorie Harrison Webb, I don’t know you, but I already love you,” Swanson said, to laughter from the crowd.

Harrison Webb is president of the Harrison Foundation, and her remarks concluded the ceremony Thursday night. She started by explaining why and how the family supported the project.

“It’s not because our father played on the football team in the 1930s,” Harrison Webb said. “It’s also not because our brother David was on the UVA lacrosse team in the 1960s. It’s all because a few years ago we had a meeting with Jim Ryan at [the Country Club of Virginia] in Richmond to discuss how the Harrison Foundation was going to handle future gifts to the University.”

At CCV that day, Harrison Webb said, Ryan “laid out the argument for this center … To us it seemed, for lack of a tagline of our own, a great and a good concept. So we signed on. We’re proud to be a small part of the continuing success of every sport at UVA. Go Hoos!”

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