Massive $20M donation to Pitt leads to bizarre name change for head coaching position
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Pittsburgh Panthers head coach Pat Narduzzi got a new job title Thursday. Instead of being the head coach at Pitt football, Narduzzi will now be known as the Chris Bickell '97 Head Football Coach. No, really.
The University of Pittsburgh announced a massive $20 million donation by alumnus Chris Bickell, who, as you may have already guessed, graduated from the school in 1997. It was the largest single donation in the university's history.
That money will go toward improving the football team at Pitt and its players. Half of the money has already been allocated to the team's "training, nutrition and learning environment infrastructure," according to a statement released by the school.
Given the size of the donation, Pitt will also rename the head football coach position in honor of Bickell.
In recognition of Bickell's historic gift, the head football coaching position at Pitt will be named the "Chris Bickell '97 Head Football Coach." This is the first named coaching position in the history of Pitt Athletics.
Bickell also spoke to the team Thursday to "offer words of encouragement on the season." The team plans to celebrate Bickell's donation during Saturday's game against the University of Massachusetts.
As for Narduzzi, he'll keep doing what he normally does. As far as we know, this is one of those job-title changes that doesn't result in extra responsibilities or pay.
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"And now, the starting backfield for Northwestern. First, the Julia Louis-Dreyfuss '82 quarterback, Hunter Johnson....."
Fascinating! Professors have been doing this for generations.
Here is a long list of endowed academic positions just at UCLA. Some examples:
The School of Law has Kirk Stark as the Barrall Family Endowed Chair in Tax Law and Policy, Eugene Volohk is the Gary T. Schwartz Endowed Chair in Law, Cheryl Harris is The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Endowed Chair in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and there are a couple dozen others just in the law school.
When Erwin Chemerinsky was at Berkeley, he was the Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law. Alan Dershowitz was the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard.
Way back in 1976, Carl Sagan became the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences at Cornell.
Every department does this and it happens all over the country. It’s probably about time coaches started doing this. Funding is funding. It’s not like people are addressed by these voluminous titles.
It's ridiculous.
This is how schools raise money. Every building has a donor’s name, and a lot of positions do, too. He’ll be listed by the name of the endowment, and probably be introduced that way at events, but no one is going to address him that way.