Yulmans, Owners Of Serta, Donate $15 Million For Tulane Stadium

The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, La.), Tammy Nunez

http://www.nola.com/tulane/index.ssf/2012/11/non-traditional_athletic_donor.html

By no means did Richard and Janet Yulman ever think their name would be slapped on the outside of a football stadium. A classroom maybe, but the couple never imagined a sporting venue.

The retired chairman and owners of the mattress manufacturing giant Serta International have been longtime givers to academic achievement causes among other community and spiritual philanthropic efforts.

“We are not traditional athletic donors at all,” Richard Yulman said.

But Yulman listened when Tulane president Scott Cowen emphasized to the Board of Tulane members how great a need an on-campus football stadium was for the university.

Cowen said Tulane needed a lead gift for its 30,000-capacity, $55 million on-campus football stadium and the Yulman family stepped forward with a $15 million donation. The stadium will be named the Yulman Stadium, Tulane announced at Thursday’s press conference.

“Stadiums are not usually our priority,” Richard said. “Tulane was our priority….(Tulane) needed us and we answered the call and that’s how it happened and we’re happy it happened.”

The Yulmans became involved with Tulane when their daughter Katy attended school at the Uptown campus. Katy graduated cum laude from Newcomb College in 2005. Richard has served on the Board of Tulane since 2005.

“Our daughter went to Tulane and loved it,” Janet said. “We had a wonderful experience. We love the Tulane family but when she was here, she didn’t go to a lot of the games because they were off-campus.”

Katy and Tulane athletic director Rick Dickson’s paths crossed about 18 months ago at Dickson’s first fund-raising campaign efforts for the project early in 2011 when he made a presentation to a group of bankers in New York. Katy was the event manager for that meeting.

Little did she know at the time her family’s last name would be on the project.

“They needed it. It was time,” Richard Yulman said. “We discussed it as a family and decided to do it….I think it was sorely needed,” Richard Yulman said. “I think Tulane football could never become what it could be at the Superdome. I think that the stadium is a perfect size. I think having it on the campus that students will be there and that makes all the difference in the world.”

Similarly, New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson and his wife Gayle stepped forward with a $7.5 million gift from the Gayle and Tom Benson Charitable Foundation. The stadium’s field will be named Benson Field after the two.

Though the Mercedes-Benz Superdome is sort of Benson’s “house,” the football field about four miles from there will bear his name.

“Tulane is so important to this community, No. 1. No. 2, I really wanted to get them back into football (home games) because at the Superdome, it’s so large and you put six or seven thousand people in there and they’ll get lost in it,” Benson said. “Here, they’ll put the 30,000 people in it. The students will be even more active in it. It will just be great for our community. We’re going to have another great football team here in New Orleans.”

Tulane football Coach Curtis Johnson, who was hired in December after serving six years as wide receivers coach for the Saints, certainly brought attention to the stadium need.

“He’s been a part of my career and just a good person, him and his wife Gayle,” Johnson said. “All the people at the Saints have just been so fantastic to me. Just to have him be a part of this is just so special to me.”

Another professional football family gave big money to the project as well. Jill and Avram “Avie” Glazier donated an unspecified “multi-million dollar gift” sum and will have the family club area named for them. The Jill H. and Avram A. Glazer Family Club will be the club space for premium ticket holders.

Avie Glazer is the co-chairman of the 19-time English soccer champion club Manchester United and is an owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He is the former chairman of the Zapata Corporation.

Jill, who graduated from Tulane in 1985, has been a central part of the university’s major fund-raising campaigns and has been a board member since 2009.

But the local resident is also a fixture at many Green Wave sporting events.

“We’re a sports family. It’s a business of sports. We enjoy it. It’s a combination,” Jill Glazer said. “We like sports, it’s part of everyday life for us.”

Jill knows what it’s like to attend Tulane and not have an on-campus football game-day venue.

“I went to Tulane and there was no stadium. We went to the Superdome to games when no one was there,” she said. “Knowing how much it would do for the community and sitting around and hearing the folks of New Orleans talk about the old days and all that — we just wanted to try and make something happen….We wanted a home-field advantage.”

Avie added: “It’s going to be fantastic for Tulane and the community and we’re glad to be a part of it.”

So is Darion Monroe, a freshman safety on the football team who came dressed in his jersey, along with several teammates. He eagerly watched the action from the floor of the Wilson Center. Under his chair in the middle of the Center’s atrium, a piece of artificial turf cut in the rectangle shape of a football field, resplendent with authentic hash marks, carpeted the stone floor.

A band blared the fight song and other New Orleans numbers before the press conference began. But when he heard the former Tulane Stadium was demolished in 1980, it struck a cord.

“That’s a long time to not have a stadium,” Monroe said. “I thank Mr. Benson for letting us play at the Superdome and when we get this stadium it’s going to be nice. I can’t wait to play in it.”

Thursday’s event marked the end of a long road for athletic director Rick Dickson – and the beginning of another. There is still a little more money to be raised to complete the finishing fund-raising pieces of the project and then there is the oversight of the construction, which is slated to begin in January.

But on Thursday Dickson had a moment to take in the fruits of a lot of fund-raising efforts from himself, president Scott Cowen, and the athletic department staff.

“Obviously I knew coming in 12 years ago that it was something that should happen, needed to happen but all those things were understandably shelved….Now we’re in the home stretch,” Dickson said.