photo by: Contributed by the University of Kansas

This rendering displays what the signage outside KU's indoor football practice facility will look like after it is completed.

A portion of the University of Kansas’ new indoor football practice facility has been named the Beatty Family Pavilion after a family of KU alumni whose donations helped fund the project.

At last week’s Board of Regents meeting, KU Chancellor Douglas Girod received approval for his request to rename the ancillary portion of the indoor football practice facility for the Beatty family — Mike and Mary Nell Beatty and their children Sarah DeVries, Philip Beatty and Patrick Beatty.

Girod said members of the Beatty family have been “phenomenal supporters of the university in many different ways.”

“They were certainly very big supporters of that facility, with the lead gift to help make that facility happen,” he said in reference to the practice facility as a whole.

University spokesman Joe Monaco told the Journal-World that the family had requested that the amount of their donation not be publicized.

The 7,000-square-foot ancillary area of the practice facility was completed in March 2019 and includes a formal lobby, a sports medicine space, video space, food preparation area, public restrooms, and a storage facility. It cost $3.5 million. The portion of the facility where players actually practice opened in February 2019. The total cost of the facility, including the ancillary area, was $26 million, Monaco said.

Girod specified that the indoor practice facility itself is not named after the Beatty family, but simply the ancillary portion. Because “Beatty Family Pavilion” will be displayed outside the entrance, the university needed the approval of the Board of Regents.

Mike Beatty graduated with a business degree from KU in 1960, and his children also graduated from KU. Mary Nell Beatty attended KU at one point but did not graduate from the university. She has a degree from Wichita State University.

In addition to donating to the practice facility, the family has supported the university by funding student-athlete scholarships. Mike and Mary Nell, who currently live in Salina, are members of the Chancellors Club, as is Patrick. Also, Mike, Mary Nell, Patrick, and Sarah are all lifetime members of the Alumni Association. Mary Nell, as a former student, is considered an alumna for the purpose of membership in the organization, Monaco told the Journal-World.