NEWS

Washington family gifting $7M to UM athletics

FAL

Kevin and Kyle Washington, the sons of Dennis and Phyllis Washington, on behalf of the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation, has gifted $7 million to the University of Montana’s Department of Athletics to be used for a $14 million Washington-Grizzly Champions Center.

It is the largest gift to the Department of Athletics in its history.

The remaining $7 million will come from private sources. The project is pending approval by the Montana University System Board of Regents.

The 46,000-square-foot facility, which will be located hard against the southwest side of Washington-Grizzly Stadium, will provide the department a new football locker room and two-level weight room, which will become the training home of all 15 of Montana’s teams.

Kyle Washington was a sophomore in high school when the stadium that bore his family’s name opened. Like most Griz fans, he’d since believed that the behind-the-scenes facilities — unseen to most but integral to the Montana teams’ successes — reflected the department’s championship ethos.

What he and his brother discovered on a tour of those support facilities last December was just the opposite: a cramped space void of windows and energy but still charged with producing winning programs.

There was good reason former Griz football coach Bobby Hauck famously avoided showing the area to recruits.

“It was quite dilapidated. It isn’t fit for a high school, quite frankly,” said Kyle, today living in Vancouver and working for the Washington Cos. in their shipping and transportation endeavors north of the border.

“Something new was well beyond needed. I couldn’t believe that what was in place had been getting the department so far for so long.”