Dear Owl Fans,

Another academic year at Florida Atlantic University is under way, our fall sports season has already begun and the first football game is just days away.

With our move to the American Athletic Conference on the horizon, the generous support we receive from our donors and season ticket holders is paramount. We've had a great deal of success in these areas, thanks to many of you and we are continuing to work diligently to find more ways to generate support for our nearly 450 student-athletes.

Last year, we benefited from another tremendous fund-raising campaign thanks to our highly generous donors. Specifically, Paradise Club giving more than doubled, which is vital to the growth and competitiveness of FAU Athletics. This continues a trend of fund-raising success over the past four years. In that time, we have generated 24 six- or seven-figure gifts, including eight in fiscal year 2022 alone. Both of those are record numbers for FAU Athletics.
With these thoughtful gifts, we have been able to provide more scholarships for our student-athletes and greatly enhance the student-athlete experience.

In addition, we continue to see incredible results from our premium seating options at FAU Stadium. The Paradise Cabanas at the south end of Howard Schnellenberger Field are sold out and were so popular we have added Bar Cabanas at the north end of the stadium. Those have completely sold out as well. We have just one suite and three loge boxes remaining for the 2022 football season.

Our Paradise Pride initiative to increase attendance and awareness has also been a tremendous success, generating more than 22,000 new fans in attendance through the program last year and leading to nearly 1,000 NEW season tickets sold for the upcoming football season.

In the classroom, FAU student-athletes continued their extraordinary culture of academic success while keeping an impressive streak alive. Our student-athletes compiled a department-wide grade-point average of 3.105, marking the 14^th straight semester with a department-wide GPA of 3.0 or better. That is seven straight years! Owl student-athletes continue to graduate at a higher rate than their general student body counterparts, as well.

We truly enjoyed seeing many of you over the course of the summer at our Paradise Pride Tour stops and our Owlpalooza fan fest event. There was a definite sense of excitement in the air and we greatly appreciated the opportunity to spend time with our fans and supporters while looking forward to the 2022-23 seasons for all our Owl teams.

We welcomed two new head coaches to the Owls over the summer.

Shortly after my last "From the Desk Of" letter, our beloved beach volleyball coach Capri Grotowski tragically passed away. The Owls' assistant coach Steve Grotowski was named head coach on July 18. We look forward to seeing Steve and his program continue to grow and build on the success he and Capri began when the program was launched in 2014. His accomplishments, which include earning national assistant coach of the year honors and coaching the team to its first victory in NCAA Tournament play, gives us great confidence in his ability to lead the program.

We are also excited to welcome Jordan Clark to the FAU community earlier this summer, as she takes over as head softball coach. Jordan comes to Paradise after a very successful four-year tenure as an assistant coach at Ohio State, where she helped lead the Buckeyes to two NCAA Regionals in three full seasons. Since her arrival, Jordan has worked diligently to bring in a first-rate staff, add talented student-athletes to the roster and establish great relationships with our current student-athletes.

In line with our mission to "Create a brighter future for FAU through student-athlete success," the athletic department's primary goal will always be to provide exposure for the university, serving as its proverbial "front porch."  With that in mind, coverage of FAU Athletics has generated the equivalent of more than $850 million in average annual advertising exposure for the university over the past four years. Our plan is to achieve an even higher level of success in the years to come, putting this great university even more squarely in the national spotlight.

I could not be more excited about the upcoming year and the future of FAU Athletics and I am looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible at all of our events throughout the year.

Go Owls!
 
Brian White
Vice President and Director of Athletics