After Marcelo Suárez-Orozco was named UMass Boston chancellor in early 2020, one of the first people he visited in the city was Jim Davis, the New Balance chairman.
Davis’s athletic footwear and apparel company had previously committed $5 million to launch a sports leadership program at UMass Boston, the largest gift in the school’s history at the time.
“We had a very good, very frank conversation,” Suárez-Orozco recalled. “The message was, ‘I want to see how this evolves and the direction it takes.’”
Nearly four years later, Davis is apparently quite happy with the direction: UMass Boston on Thursday announced that New Balance is doubling down on the success of the sports program, by pledging another $10 million to expand it. As a result, UMass Boston is establishing the New Balance Institute for Innovative Leadership in Sport. The money will provide operational funds to launch the institute and to create a permanent endowment to help pay for it long into the future.
“This is really a testament to the generosity and the vision of the New Balance folks,” Suárez-Orozco said. “This gift, in a way, puts us in the forefront of the nexus between sports business and management and social responsibility.”
The $10 million gift is tied for the second largest at UMass Boston, alongside a $10 million pledge from hospital operator Mass General Brigham announced earlier this year. In 2021, Robert and Donna Manning pledged $15 million to the school for nursing education.
UMass Boston recruited professor Joseph Cooper from UConn to start the sports program in 2019, and to spearhead it. Cooper said 34 students have graduated from the program so far, starting in the spring of 2021, and have gone on to jobs at prominent employers such as the Kraft Group, the Boston Red Sox, and, unsurprisingly, New Balance. Today, more than 125 students are enrolled.
The group currently consists of Cooper, two other professors, and a staffer, and Cooper said he is in the process of hiring another professor. With this new infusion from New Balance, Cooper plans to expand the faculty and staff to accommodate the growth.
By expanding the effort into an institute, UMass Boston plans to offer a new certification program for people going into the industry and to establish labs to help students learn and prepare for careers, among other changes. The hope is to eventually accommodate as many as 300 students a year, while expanding external connections between the school and the sports industry.
“I think it’s going to be a transformational change in the program, in terms of providing great opportunities for our students, [including] experiential learning, and research opportunities,” Cooper said.
Suárez-Orozco said the latest gift stemmed from another discussion he had with New Balance’s Davis, about six months ago. Cooper made a presentation during that visit, showing the program’s growth.
“That’s when we began the nitty gritty of developing a new gift agreement,” Suárez-Orozco said. “This is about Boston. This is about getting the talent, retaining the talent, keeping the students here in Boston.”
New Balance CEO Joe Preston said executives at his company have been pleasantly surprised by the program’s growth.
“It’s been really building momentum over the last five years,” Preston said. “New Balance is all about community here. We have UMass Boston within our community, … one of the most diverse colleges in the nation. These students then [typically] stay in Massachusetts after they graduate. … We felt it was a great opportunity to help these students.”
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.