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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 12, 2019

Piscataway, New Jersey

PAT HOBBS: It is my pleasure to welcome everyone to this historic day for Rutgers Athletics when we unveil the RWJBarnabas Health Athletic Performance Center. It's sort of fitting, and I will tell you, two weeks ago, my staff, for the 50-yard line dinner, urged me to bring it inside, and I said, no, no, it's not going to rain, it's going to be fine, and of course any of those who were in attendance, we got a little wet but we had fun. As my mother used to say, go out there, it'll make you grow. Basketball it doesn't actually work, so don't go stand in the rain. And then this morning the staff urged me again, I think we need to bring this inside, and I think it's still raining out there.

But in a way I think it's incredibly fitting that we begin this, we have the beginning of this celebration here in the RAC because this, the RAC, was the last building opened for Rutgers Athletics 40 years ago in 1977, so 42 years ago. So the RWJBarnabas Health Athletic Performance Center is a statement of the new Rutgers, the new Rutgers Athletics.

This center becomes the benchmark by which all other collegiate and professional sports facilities will be measured. In short, there is nothing like this facility anywhere, and many of us have been to many facilities, and we know that to be the truth.

Through our partnership with RWJBarnabas Health, this facility will provide a first-in-class sports medicine program, ensuring that our almost 700 student-athletes receive the very best in medical care, sports performance and nutrition. This will also serve as a Best in Class practice facility for our men's and women's basketball programs, as well as our gymnastics and wrestling programs. Worst to first.

My task here is simple. It is to say thank you to the many who have made this day possible. I'm going to start with Barry Ostrowsky and RWJBarnabas Health. Rutgers Athletics had a vision of building a best-in-class athletic facility. Barry and RWJBarnabas Health had a vision for providing best-in-class sports medicine to our student-athletes and the thousands of athletes competing across the state of New Jersey.

Today we have married those two visions, and it was Barry's commitment that green-lighted this project. Thank you, Barry.

I want a special shout-out to two people here, to Justin Edelman, from RWJBarnabas Health, who Barry put on point for their efforts, and to my deputy athletic director Sarah Baumgartner, who's been on point for us, so for the two of them, hundreds of hours, and now today we see this great facility. So thank you, Justin; thank you, Sarah.

I want to thank Governor Cristie and Senators Lesniak and Tom Kean Jr., who were supported by Senate president Steve Sweeney and Assembly leader Vincent Prieto, along with everyone in the state legislature who supported us through the award of the $25 million in tax credits. Your actions launched the Big Ten Build. Senator Lesniak, again, thank you.

To all you fantastic amazing Big Ten Build donors. Over 4,000 of you and counting here in the audience and watching live stream have answered our call. You have made gifts large and small. Every member of my executive staff made a commitment. Many of our coaches, most of our coaches and many of our staff have committed, including Coach Ash and Coach Pikiell, who took us over the $100 million mark.

You know, surely after we kicked off the Big Ten Build, I'm reminded now again that we're in here. I walked in the back of the RAC, and one of our custodians came up to me, and he shook my hand and he said, Mr. Hobbs, I just want to tell you, the only thing I've ever done is I give at church on Sunday, but I want to let you know it wasn't big, but I just made a commitment to the Big Ten Build. You know who you are. Thank you very, very much.

Today we open the RWJBarnabas Health Performance Athletic Center and in 15 months, we open the Gary and Barbara Rodkin Academic Success Center, one on the Livingston campus, one on the Busch campus, both game-changers for our programs. On behalf of every coach, every student-athlete, our thanks go to all of you. Thank you very much.

Everyone knows that a lot has to happen to go from a green light to a grand opening, so I also want to thank a few of those people. First, to have a great building you have to have a great design, and we got a great design out of our architects Perkins Eastman, led by Scott Schiamberg, Dario Brito, John Locke, Sharmainne Lim and others. Would the folks from Perkins Eastman stand up so we can say thank you.

You need a great group of people working inside to make sure that the project moves forward, and we have an amazing facilities department under the leadership of our executive vice president Tony Calcado, John Shulack, one of our vice presidents, architect Dave Schultz and project manager Bob Hoffman. I saw Georgia also in there. Everybody from facilities stand up so we can say thank you.

Our owners' reps, KMS Development Partners, Bob McCulley, Mike Sencindiver and their team, please stand so we can say thank you to you.

One of the things that everybody keeps saying to me is how did that thing get built so fast. Epic Construction, John Epifano, John Lafont, Bill Morris, all the folks that are here from Epic Construction and your subs, please stand so we can say thank you to you.

And now for my most important thank you and our most important thank you from all of the student-athletes and coaches here in Rutgers Athletics. Bob Barchi arrived on the banks seven years ago to become Rutgers University's 20th president. He arrived with a mandate: To oversee the largest merger in the history of higher education with the creation of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences. Just this past year, Bob and Barry concluded an affiliation agreement with RWJBarnabas Health to jointly operate New Jersey's largest and most comprehensive academic health system.

More than anyone, Bob Barchi has made the idea of one Rutgers university a reality. Now, some of you know that one of Bob's nicknames here at Rutgers is Bob the Builder. During his tenure, seven years, he has overseen the construction of 3.2 million square feet of new academic and student life space, including the honors college, the Weeks engineering building here in New Brunswick, and many improvements on both the Camden and Newark campuses, truly an incredible legacy. And today, we open the majestic new building for Rutgers Athletics.

Bob Barchi is the Christopher Wren of Rutgers. Bob, thank you for your unflagging support of Rutgers Athletics. Your support will drive success on the courts and playing fields in the many years ahead, and we know that in your retirement from Rutgers, you will be watching our athletes and they will be saying thank you, Bob Barchi. Please welcome Bob Barchi.

BOB BARCHI: A little over the top there, Pat. I'm not sure that the Christopher Wren reference really kind of connected there. But I have to tell you, I'm just delighted to be here. As you know, my favorite bird is the construction crane. If there's anything better than a groundbreaking, it's a ribbon cutting. Getting to the end here and seeing a ribbon cut really does my heart good.

This is a wonderful facility, and I want to congratulate all the people that are here representing the groups who made it possible. This is a lot of teamwork. It's a teamwork for the teams. It's a teamwork to show them how to get it done.

I want to just focus on a couple of things here. This is the second building in two weeks, in less than two weeks, that we've opened for our students or having a major impact on our students. Last week we helped to do the ribbon cutting for the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, a project that was done in conjunction with the city and the mayor and DEVCO and Rutgers and several other partners. It is fantastic. But most importantly, it's a new place for our performers and our Mason Gross students to rub shoulders with the best and brightest from Broadway in their performing arts career.

And then today, we're opening another dimension, a performance center for our athletes. You get the trend here. Looking at how we can expand and extend the runways for our students, how we can give them more opportunities to make the best out of their careers that they possibly can. We have great students with great potential. We owe it to them to give them great opportunities.

Both of these projects really underscore something that I think is critical for how our university functions, and the only way frankly that we can do what we want to do going forward, and that's the concept of partnership. So if I look at this building in particular and think about partnership, when we started talking about the building and, what was it now, six years ago that that had to happen, the question then was how the heck are we going to do it on funds that come completely from athletics.

We started having conversations with Barry Ostrowsky. Barry, as you know, is a die-hard Rutgers person, Rutgers College, Rutgers Law, and he really, really is one of those alumni who follows everything that we do, and we started talking about the RWJBarnabas new relationship that they had, being a sponsor for the healthcare for this building, and that started to gather momentum and morphed into a naming opportunity, and then the primary donor, and now we have this RWJBarnabas Sports Health and Performance Center.

That was actually the start of something much bigger, because as far as I'm concerned, that began a partnership that then rolled forward to this new relationship between Rutgers and RWJBarnabas to create the largest academic health system in the state of New Jersey. That's a partnership. That's a great partnership.

So I want to thank RWJBarnabas and Barry and Jack Morris, who was the chairman of the board during that time. I know Mark Burson, the current chair, is here with us today for that partnership.

The second partnership Pat talked about just a little bit. This is a project that really couldn't have gotten done without partnering with the state, and you've heard a lot of conversation about the various members of the legislature, the senate and the assembly who have made this possible, but I want to single out one person again, and that's Ray Lesniak, dyed scarlet, who in the time that he'd been senator here over those years did so much for Rutgers but specifically helped us to get the financing that we needed to get this project in place.

And the third partnership are you. The third partnership are all the alumni and friends of Rutgers who made contributions to this building to make it possible. That's such a strong partnership. We committed to the rest of the university that this building would be built out of funds developed from athletics. Amongst all the doubters and all the naysayers, we said we could do it, and Pat, you and your team have done it, and you've done it because of these partnerships and because of the partnership that you have with your donors and your supporters throughout the community.

So as I look around the campus just coming back in September and I see what's happened here in athletics with the Big Ten Build, I see this building opening, I see the Barbara and Gary Rodkin Center For Academic Achievement opening, I look across from that and I see the victory statue up there proudly rearing made possible by Ron and Joanna Garutti, things are different. The practice fields, it all starts to look like it's coming together, something that you can be proud to be part of, and I hope that you guys who are on the teams and you ladies who are on the teams feel that way, feel a sense of pride in what you have now. Now you've got to do something with it, all right?

I've been hearing for years, we can't win because we don't have the facilities. Well, we have the facilities, right, Steve? So I just have to tell you I'm delighted. I'm delighted to be here. I'm delighted to have been a part of this. It's something that I will look back on with great memories, and I'm sure that the teams and the athletes who are going to use this are going to do us all proud. Thank you very much.

I'm going to introduce someone who really does need no introduction, but I'm going to turn the mic over to Mark Angelson, who is the chairman of our Board of Governors but who is also a two-time Rutgers alum, from Rutgers College and from Rutgers Law, and has been important in helping to get this project along. Mark?

MARK ANGELSON: Thank you, Bob. Thank you to everybody here in the RAC this late afternoon for making everything that some of us have seen before and that the rest of us will see right after this ceremony possible. I bring you good tidings from your Board of Governors. I would take just less than a minute to introduce and ask them to stand, my two new best friends, because behind every remarkably successful CEO, like Barry Ostrowsky and Bob Barchi, there are strong boards, and so Mark Burson, could I ask you to stand, chairman of the board of Barnabas?

Thank you, Senator Lesniak, for everything that you have created at Rutgers, including a complex governance structure. We have more boards than most universities, and our board of trustees is represented by its chair, Jim Dougherty. If you could stand and be recognized, Jim, that would be great.

Success has many parents, and I could take more than my remaining minute going around introducing all of them. I see Tony Calcado sitting there with that handsome gold tie. I see Nevin Kessler sitting next to them as if they didn't cooperate in funding this whole thing. The two people who are most prominently mentioned, I also see Coach Stringer -- Coach Stringer, would you stand, please? My golly. The two people who are most often recognized for their contributions to this project, deservedly so, are our two CEOs Bob Barchi and Barry Ostrowsky. You all know everything there is to know about Bob and you're going to hear it early and often between now and June 30th when he will become a real-life legend, if he already isn't.

I'd like to tell you just sort of 15 seconds of things about Barry Ostrowsky, whom I first met in the fall of 1968 when he and I were classmates at Rutgers College, later to become fraternity brothers at Rutgers College, and also co-occupants of the seventh floor of Clothier Hall a very, very long time ago. Barry showed great promise. He has achieved it. He started out as a new arrival from the Millburn, New Jersey, football program if I remember correctly with a full head of hair. I had one, too. Things change. Bob and Barry, thank you, thank you, thank you.

The person who is perhaps least recognized for this magnificent structure that came to fruition today is your next speaker, the chancellor of Rutgers University - New Brunswick, Dr. Christopher Molloy. Chris Molloy was the head of research and economic development at Rutgers, but before that, he was the acting or interim head of the RBHS predecessor at Rutgers and then the acting or interim head of the RBHS reality at Rutgers. And the theme of continuity, and we'll talk more about continuity in a second, that comes from Chris Molloy is just remarkable. Chris was the person who, hands on, working for Bob and with the participation of many others, created RBHS. Chris, it's a great pleasure to see you here. I would ask you to join me up here while I'm embarrassing you a little bit further, and it goes like this: Chris is double Rutgers as well as Barry and yours truly. Chris, from his experience as the head of research and economic development, as the former dean of the pharmacy school, in his capacity as the double interim chancellors of RBHS, if you will, knows Rutgers ice cold. He bleeds scarlet. We are extremely fortunate to have him with us today. Thank you.

CHRISTOPHER MOLLOY: Thank you, Mark. I'm thoroughly embarrassed but really in a good way, actually. Let me just say that it's a unbelievable pleasure for me to be here today in the RAC that was built my senior year at Rutgers, when we had basketball teams that went to the Final Four and were always in contention for the NCAA tournaments, and we will shortly have that again here. I have no doubt. No doubt. And of course, the women's team that really was just starting out back then, and now it's been an outstanding asset to this university, thanks to Coach Stringer, and of course all the athletes in wrestling, and we can go on and on, but let's not go on and on right now.

This is really about today, about Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health. I can't help but be reminded today of a favorite quote: To be the best, you must practice like you're the second best. And I think we do that here in this facility.

Standing here just a building over from the state-of-the-art facility, our student-athletes, our athletic trainers and sports medical students definitely have every resource at their disposal to become the best on and off the fields and courts, and I'm so excited to go to so many games to see that really happen, and it's going to happen even this year. And when you stop to think about it, that's what makes Rutgers so unique and special. We provide our students the best resources, opportunities and facilities that help shape their goals and dreams. This athletic training facility is but another example of that, and the Rodkin Center will be another example of that, and the faculty that we hire at Rutgers and the advisors are another example of that.

Here at this university we are constantly thinking about preparing our students for the work of the world and ensuring that they have the skills to perform jobs in the 21st century, and because of partnerships like the one with RWJBarnabas - thank you, Barry - that brought about this amazing facility, we are able to create yet another learning lab that will support a best-in-class sports medicine program for our students, the affiliated physicians, and practitioners, some being pharmacists like me, who will operate to hone sports medicine skills while training the next generation of healthcare providers interested in sports medicine and athletic training.

Within these walls, education, training and patient care will coexist, and Rutgers will once again be at the center of it, and the impact that this will have on our students, sports medicine physicians and athletic trainers and our student-athletes will be significant.

This work here and throughout Rutgers University can truly make a difference, and that's what a great public research university is all about. My many thanks and congratulations again to everyone who made this dream a reality, especially my boss, President Robert Barchi for his vision and RWJBarnabas Health for their ongoing support and partnership. Today is a great day for Rutgers, my Rutgers and your Rutgers, for the state of New Jersey that we proudly serve. Now it's my pleasure to have athletic director Pat Hobbs to come back on the stage. Pat?

PAT HOBBS: Thank you, Chancellor Molloy. We're also honored today by our assemblywoman Nancy Pinkin is here. Nancy, would you stand up? And I'm reminded, and thank you for coming today, we had a conversation in your office just maybe a little over a week ago, and one of her concerns was about the quality of what we're providing to our student-athletes, particularly to our women student-athletes, and it's wonderful to be able to go out and talk about the facilities, and I see Coach Stringer is standing behind nodding her head because for 25 years we weren't able to say, here's what we're doing, but now we're able to say that. Assemblywoman, thank you for being here today.

I've known Barry for almost 25 years, and he's one of the most extraordinary people working in healthcare in our nation today. He's a visionary in a time -- Tom Friedman calls this the age of disruption, all right. He has shaped the evolution of New Jersey's healthcare delivery system, working with physicians, hospitals, insurers to provide best in class healthcare to over 5 million New Jerseyans. As I alluded to earlier and Dr. Barchi spoke about along with Dr. Strom, they've created an academic and clinical partnership that will result in 100 new medical research positions, embed Rutgers medical students and faculty in RWJBarnabas Health facilities, and invest over $1 billion over the next 20 years.

That deserves a round of applause.

But the best thing about Barry, student-athletes, listen up, he's one of us. He is a Rutgers letter winner. Barry started in football and then he competed in track and field in an event many of us are not that familiar with called the hammer throw, making him the second most famous hammer thrower here at Rutgers after Rudy Winkler. Please welcome Barry Ostrowsky.

BARRY OSTROWSKY: Thank you, Pat. I'm delighted to be a Rutgers alum, primarily because I don't think I can get back into the school if I was applying today. It's a spectacular university.

I want to thank you all for being here. Clearly the theme of today's ceremony is partnerships. I've been taught throughout my life that choosing the right partners who matter what you do is what will ultimately shape the success that you would hope to enjoy, whether that's personal or professional, whether that's academic, and today we at RWJBarnabas Health celebrate a great partnership. I think it's pretty courageous of Mark Angelson to make hair jokes, but it is true that Mark and I have been at least partners for over 50 years. He's always been a couple of successful rungs ahead of me, but it's been great knowing him and seeing that which he's done for the university.

In fact, I think that the university, of course under Bob Barchi, has accomplished goals and objectives that are now internationally recognized and make, again, alums like me even prouder to be an alum. Professionally I am here representing 35,000 employees who dedicate themselves every day to the mission of RWJBarnabas Health, which is to make the lives of everyone we see better. Our investment in sports medicine is about that. We understand the need for our student-athletes to have the best facilities, the best professional help, the best clinical care, and frankly the best support in any way we can make it available. In order to do it through an organization like ours, we have to have the commitment of every level of the organization, and that begins with our board of trustees. You've already met Mark Burson, our insightful chairman, Jack Morris, who was a founding chairman, and the man who presided when we made this arrangement. He's not here today, but he too is incredibly proud of what will be accomplished.

We think going forward, the RWJBarnabas Health name and the Rutgers name will become synonymous. Our academic relationship, our clinical training relationship, our commitment to medical research we think will continue to distinguish not only the institutions but the state of New Jersey. This is an investment in a great state comprised of a diverse population, all of whom deserve to have the best, and we hope our ability together with partnering with all of you out there to bring this great center to fruition is one small investment in making the lives of many better. So I thank you for being a terrific partner. I thank you for all of your generosity and commitment, and we look forward to celebrating great accomplishments together in the years to come. Thank you very much.

PAT HOBBS: Thank you, Barry. Our next speaker will represent our four coaches who reside in the RWJBarnabas Health Athletic Performance Center, and they are four coaches who are bringing their programs forward in ways unlike anyone has seen. We're going to start with our gymnastics coach, Umme Salim-Beasley. Is she here? She's in the facility. She's celebrating her birthday, so we say happy birthday to Coach Umme Salim-Beasley.

Then we have our wrestling program over there, and all we have over there is the National Coach of the Year in Scott Goodale. And then last year we had a spectacular moment here in the RAC where confetti was falling all over the place because Coach Stringer became only the fifth person to get 1,000 wins. And this year she begins her 25th year on the banks. Congratulations, Coach Stringer. Steve, we've got some work to do, right?

Steve Pikiell needs no introduction, but what everybody saw last year, Sports Illustrated named our men's basketball program most improved in the country, and our women's basketball team, our men's basketball team are here, and they are going to make us very, very proud in the future. Please welcome Steve Pikiell.

STEVE PIKIELL: We have about 20 more minutes of air-conditioning in the RAC left. Wow. Yeah, we didn't move out soon enough. I think they put it in two years ago, and I think the warranty was up yesterday, so that's about par for the course here.

I'm honored to be the head coach. Three years ago I was lucky enough to be named the head coach here. I've lived in New Jersey now for three years. I love Jersey. I love -- we're Jersey strong, we're tough, we're all those things. But I went home the other night to my wife, and I said, you know, they've asked me to speak at this function, and I felt really honored I was able to do that, and she said, "What did they ask you for?" Way to build up my confidence. Appreciate that, honey. She said, You've got all these coaches. I said, Hey, you don't realize, between Coach Stringer and I, over 1,000 wins. A thousand. 16 trips, Coach Stringer and I, to the NCAA tournament. Coach Stringer, I appreciate you chipping in.

And then I said, Coach Goodale, I said, between the two of us, we've got one National Coach of the Year award and two national champions. Coach, heck of a job. Pick it up a little bit.

And then I said, Coach Beasley, women's gymnastics. I think she's the best young coach in the Big Ten, does an unbelievable job. She has 13 all-academic students on her team, all Big Ten academics. Unbelievable honor. So combine men's basketball and gymnastic, we have 13 all-academic Big Ten players. Terrific job. Good job, guys. Way to chip in. You see them over there, wow. That's what I work with on a daily. Wow.

But I will tell you this: Actually, our guys, and I've got to praise them when they're good, we have over a 3.0 GPA this year for men's basketball, and I can promise you one thing, there's never been over a 3.0 GPA in men's basketball, so great job. We're creating history. We sure are.

But I told my wife, I represent the four happiest coaches in the entire state of New Jersey, and I'm honored to speak on their behalf. I'm the only coach that had a losing record last year, so I really think, Kevin Lorincz, they wanted to build my confidence, so I appreciate you guys doing that. But I represent four great coaches, and I'm honored, I work side-by-side with a Hall of Fame coach. Can you imagine that? Hall of Fame coach. I paid $20 to get into the Hall of Fame about three months ago. It's unbelievable, and I saw your thing there, so we've got a lot in common. I paid to see your statue in there.

But I work alongside some of the greatest coaches, our women's and men's -- how about some of the teams here, too. I know everyone will talk about my team sometimes and other teams. Our women's soccer team, Coach O'Neill right there, he's by far -- he's standing right there. Beating ranked teams all over the place. He single-handedly said he's by far the best-looking coach at Rutgers, so I agree with you on that. And Meredith, our field hockey, they just win.

I mean, the coaches here are awesome people. The university, the one I could never get into. We've got double degrees here by everybody at Rutgers. I could never get in here. But I will tell you, I'm very proud, my son got in here. He's a freshman, and thank God he takes after his mother. He got that DNA, and he's unbelievable, so I'm proud, and hopefully four years from now I'll be the proud dad of a graduate, so that's what I'm very, very excited about.

But I will tell you, when they told me I had a 30-second time-out basically here, I can't get anything done in a 30-second time-out. They told me, You've got 30 seconds to talk. I said forget about it, I'm going to talk for a while because I've been on the job three years, and Rutgers Athletics is moving and moving fast. It's a great time to be a part of the program. It's a great time to be a student-athlete here. It's a great time to be from this great state of New Jersey. Rutgers pride is coming, it's coming back, and buy stock now.

Before I introduce the most important part of this stage, I want to say I think of two words when I think of Rutgers. I think of world class. I think of world-class education. I think of world-class faculty, world-class people, and they're all in the room here, like we have world-class people. Three years now, I can't believe the people here that I've met and that are part of this great university. We're in a world-class conference. It's the best, and it's always the company you keep. You look at the institutions that Rutgers is competing with and they led us into this conference, tells you a lot about this school and this university. We have world-class student-athletes, and I want to give all of our student-athletes a big round of applause for what they do every day and for how they represent in the best league in the country, for all their sweat equity, for their academics, they do an unbelievable job. I'm very proud of them.

But now I think this is the most important, now we have a world-class facility to support world-class dreams. This facility now that we move into and partnered with a world-class hospital in a world-class state means great things are happening here on the banks, great things are going to continue to happen moving forward. And all the help that everyone up here has done, Senator Lesniak, I need now after the $25 million, we need a seven-footer. What can you do? The legislators, anybody? Anybody can help in those areas. But this new facility is a game-changer. I think for all of us as coaches, it gives our student-athletes the best. They're the best and the brightest, world-class nutrition, world-class weight rooms, world-class medical service, and a 24-hour facility dedicated to the dreams that you guys all told me that you have.

We're very thankful to you guys for choosing Rutgers. I'm also thankful that the air-conditioning works over at the other facility. So I thank you for that. I'm going to introduce -- stand up here. We want to make sure, Arella is by far the best-looking presenter today. It's all about the student-athlete and the student-athlete experience. She is by far the best shooter in the gym today would you say? Not even close, right? Gio, not even close? She's the leading returning scorer. She also wants to major in journalism, so she'll be the most articular speaker here today. But I see how hard gymnastics works, wrestling. It's like a different level. You actually have to go over to wrestling. They work so hard. Women's basketball, great representatives, exciting basketball team, Hall of Fame coach, and we're lucky enough to get one of our student-athletes who will soon be a graduate. She transferred back. She saw the light, she saw the light, and from Texas back to here, and we're really glad that she's going to speak on behalf of all the student-athletes. Appreciate everyone being here today. Our mission is to dance. Let's hope that we're dancing here in the RAC soon. Thank you.

ARELLA GUIRANTES: Hello, everyone. My game is Arella Guirantes, and I'm a redshirt junior on the women's basketball team, majoring in journalism. Ultimately I would like to pursue a career in sports broadcasting and something along the lines of acting later on.

With Rutgers being so close to New York City, the media capital of the world, it has been the best of both worlds for me as an aspiring actress. And now with the APC, I will be able to truly realize my professional and athletic goals and dreams.

Before I came to Rutgers I attended Texas Tech University for personal growth reasons, and although the facilities were elite, it wasn't enough to keep me there. Ultimately I decided that Rutgers was my home and where I needed to be. The skills and resources that I would learn here would best prepare me for my future and my professional athletic careers. Around this time last year, because the biggest career fair in the state of New Jersey takes place at the RAC, me and my team, we would be across campus practicing at College Ave gym, away from our locker room, without a meeting space and without our athletic training room.

The most valuable resource as a student-athlete is our time. These obstacles took away from our time, academics, our recovery time, opportunities to put extra work in at the gym, and finally, time to invest in our professional growth. That is why today I could not be more excited and thankful to be speaking here at the APC grand opening. We can't thank you all enough for investing in us.

Every single student-athlete that gets to use the APC will not only have access to one of the most premier facilities in college athletics but they will also benefit from the time that they have given. As you walk in today, I hope you realize how special this facility is to our team.

As Coach Stringer would say, it's not about now, it's about generations to come, and we can't thank our big sisters who have paved the way and laid the foundation so that we can experience these opportunities now.

As me and my team took our first week through the APC, the energy from me and my teammates was so contagious that I'm pretty sure they probably heard our first practice in New York City. In order to be a national champion, you have to prepare like one. The foundation of preparation is world-class facilities like the APC that give us the opportunity to prepare. And on that note, I would like to thank any and everyone who has played a role in the process of planning and building this amazing facility one more time. Can we get a round of applause for everyone who has made this possible? Thank you.

PAT HOBBS: Thank you, Arella. There is one other person that I have to mention here. There's always a risk at these events that you forget to mention somebody, and I looked up into the stands here, and I saw somebody who I've probably driven nuts for about two years on this project, nuts this morning and nuts last night, and he's my senior associate athletic director, Matt Colagiovanni. Matt, please stand up.

Are you ready to see the building? All right, so we're going to walk over now and do the ribbon cutting, and we're not going to program you anywhere in the building. If folks want to stand up on 4 and work your way down, you can do that, start on 2. We'll give you some information when you walk in the building so you know where everything is and you have a map and you can go around. When you go in, there will be champagne there, not for the student-athletes. There will be champagne there and some hors d'oeuvres and things like that. We want you to enjoy the building, walk around, sit in the chairs, go out into the gyms, really explore the facility, maybe do a little bit of wrestling with Scotty and Donnie over there and see our building. We are immensely proud of it, and we again say thank you to you. We're going to walk over. The folks here that are going to be doing the ribbon cutting, give us about three minutes before you come down out of there so pictures ready for a big, big moment for Rutgers Athletics. Thank you very much.

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