ISU F.A.T. reaches endowment milestone

For the last 20 years ISU F.A.T., the football alumni team, has been raising money to help aid the program and its athletes. Recently, the program hit a milestone with its endowment fund.

“F.A.T. has been raising funds through tailgate events, membership, and through their golf tournament, every year for quite a few years,” Pauline Thiros, Associate VP of Development said. “They’ve been building an endowment fund, and that endowment fund was intended to support scholarships, and they recently reached a total of $200,000.”

That money will be used for “summer scholarships so that student athletes in football can take advantage of summer classes, stay on campus and be ready for the fall academically and physically as well,” Thiros explained.

And while it will still be a few weeks before the football team is back in Holt Arena and the tarps are rolled out, there are nearly 50 members of the team here on campus, who are now able to participate in summer sessions due to the help of the F.A.T. club.

These contributions are something Director of Athletics Jeff Tingey views as “extremely valuable. A donation like this for next year and into perpetuity is very very valuable to use and we’re extremely grateful for it.”

Tingey also touched on the activity of some of the teams more notable alumni.

“There was a golf tournament a couple of weeks ago that the F.A.T. club put on and coach Dirk Koetter, former Bengal and now the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he came back and donated to it,” Tingey told me. “While he didn’t make it back this year, coach Marvin Lewis was back last year. He’s been very supportive.”

With all of these moves and all of this initiative, Thiros said, “it’s program changing.”

Hopefully, this aid can help ISU clinch it’s first winning season since 2014.

The Bengals start the 2018 season in Holt Arena on August 31st as they host Western State Colorado University.