Sports Reports —
COLLEGE STATION — Johnny Football isn't just helping Texas A&M University on the football field.
The resurgence of Aggies football helped Texas A&M raise a record $740 million in donations during the past year.
The fundraising haul exceeds the university's previous high mark by nearly 70 percent.
It also dwarfed the more than $400 million raised by rival University of Texas during the same period.
Ann E. Kaplan, director of the Voluntary Support of Education survey,
told the Chronicle of Higher Education that since 2001 the most money
raised by a public university—cash in hand—was $595-million by the
University of Wisconsin at Madison in 2005.
Texas A&M Foundation president Ed Davis says the campus is
enjoying more energy thanks in part to the Aggies' return as a college
football power. Quarterback Johnny Manziel won the Heisman Trophy last
year while leading Texas A&M to its best season in more than a
decade.
Davis told the Chronicle of Higher Education three factors had driven
the university's fund-raising success: confidence among alumni and
other donors that A&M is a place “on the move,” substantial wealth
generation as a result of Texas' robust energy economy, and a “positive
demographic shift” that has created a large pool of donors who are in their prime giving years.
