ST. LOUIS—Almost two years to the day Saint Louis University announced it would build a new hub for all the school’s athletes covering everything from academic advising to nutrition and wellness, university officials celebrated the grand opening of the O’Laughlin Family Champions Center. 

What You Need To Know

  • The O'Laughlin Family Champions Center will house services for all of Saint Louis University's athletic teams, including nutrition, sports psychology, academic and spiritual development

  • The facility was announced in October 2021. Construction began in May 2022 and the school says it will be fully operational by October 30

  • School President Fred Pestello: "This best-in-class facility will also raise our national profile. We know how good St. Louis is. We know how good Saint Louis University is. This facility will allow us to compete on levels heretofore difficult for us to compete in"

  • While name, image and likeness efforts have exploded on the college athletic scene in recent years, school officials say demonstrating top-level facilities is still necessary to compete in Division I athletics

The $20 million, 25,000 square foot facility was paid for entirely with private donations from some of the biggest names in St. Louis business and philanthropy, including the O’Laughlin Family Foundation, Dr. Richard A. Chaifetz, Jim Kavanaugh, CEO and co-founder of World Wide Technology, the Centene Charitable Foundation and Michael and Noemi Neidorff. Michael Neidorff, the former Centene CEO died in April 2022. 

 

Construction began in May 2022 and the school says the building will be “fully operational” by Oct. 30.

The Center is broken down into individual components named after the donors that will be dedicated to operations centers for each of the school’s sports teams, as well as areas focused on social justice, student-athlete academic development and a production studio that will highlight Name, Image and Likeness efforts.

While NIL has been in the college sports lexicon prior to the facility’s announcement, its importance in the overall landscape of college athletics at the Division I level has skyrocketed in the years since. That hasn’t stopped schools from continuing to pour money into new facilities.

“You can’t do Division I athletics without facilities. There’s no place in the country that does. NIL’s just another layer of the assets that we use to deliver the student athletes but today the O’Laughlin Family Champions Center is putting all Billiken athletics in a position from a facilities perspective and especially student services-wise that there aren’t many that can do it,” said Athletic Director Chris May. 

“This is life changing. This is gonna change student athletes, young men and women’s lives every single day. This is as important as anything as far as the academics that this is gonna be able to help with, technology the meals, I can go down the line,” said men’s basketball coach Travis Ford. “This is an absolute must I think in order to give a student-athlete the experience they deserve when they come to a university.”

When it was first announced, the Center was described as an ingredient for competing at the highest levels in a basketball-centric conference. The same rhetoric was used Monday.

"This best-in-class facility will also raise our national profile. We know how good St. Louis is. We know how good Saint Louis University is. This facility will allow us to compete on levels heretofore difficult for us to compete in,” said school president Fred Pestello.”This will allow us to attract the sort of student athletes who will benefit from the education we provide, and contribute to greater success on the court, on the field. So as we aspire to greater things, today we pause to celebrate a facility that will help us reach those aspirations.”

Among the dignitaries at the grand opening was Bernadette McGlade, commissioner of the Atlantic-10 conference which is SLU’s current athletic home. There were hints two years ago that this facility would speak to the school’s longer-term commitment to aim for a more powerful basketball home. The Jesuit school would be an obvious institutional fit with schools like Xavier, Creighton and Georgetown, Marquette and DePaul among others.

Asked directly on Monday, May and Ford were both diplomatic.

“I think it sends a message to all Billikens and everybody in intercollegiate athletics that Saint Louis University is here to compete at the highest of levels,” May said. 

“This is a message to anybody across the country. We can compete with anybody,” said Ford.

“I would say to the Big East and nationally, as well, in particular, for schools that don’t have football, it sends a message that the Billikens are not taking a back to seat to anybody, and it shows all these other schools what can be done with a vision, with a dream and with perseverance and I think so both of those things are are true,” said Bob Ramsey, the voice of Billikens men’s basketball and a St. Louis sports radio talk show host. “But yeah, between you and me, the Big East.”