Keeneland, Maker's boost UK academic center

LEXINGTON, Ky. – With construction projects done, under way or planned, more and more University of Kentucky student-athletes are living, training and competing on the south side of campus. Soon, an academic and tutoring center for those athletes will be located there as well.

With funding support from Keeneland and Maker's Mark, UK Athletics announced on Tuesday initial plans to construct a new, second Center for Academic and Tutorial Services facility. It'll be housed within the new football training center, which is currently being built next to Commonwealth Stadium, and located more than a mile away from the current CATS center at Memorial Coliseum.

Athletic director Mitch Barnhart said that by the fall of 2016, when the football team moves to its new training center, about 350 of the school's 500 student-athletes will be based on the south side of campus, so it became a necessity to accommodate them with a nearby academic center.

"Our physical facility growth of our program, it is trending toward the other side of campus," Barnhart said at a news conference at Memorial Coliseum. "Our ability to give our student-athletes the best chance schedule-wise and to be able to maintain some sense of balance in their life, we have got to create an expansion of our services to the other side of campus."

Maker's Mark and Keeneland hope to raise $2 million for CATS over the next five years through their own contributions and the proceeds of sales of commemorative bottles of Maker's bourbon. The first bottles, available in April, will feature legendary UK basketball coach Adolph Rupp.

Maker's Chief Operating Officer Rob Samuels said the bottles featuring Rupp will continue the long partnership between his company and Keeneland to release special bottles each spring that celebrate iconic figures and raise money for special projects.

UK football coach Mark Stoops was pictured on a bottle last year with proceeds going to UK's Gill Heart Institute.

An additional $2 million for the CATS project will be raised through a corporate challenge, with Keeneland pledging to become the first of 20 companies to give $100,000.

Barnhart said the new facility will take pressure off the crowded CATS facility at Memorial, which will remain the primary academic center for men's and women's basketball, volleyball, rifle and possibly gymnastics.

Specific details about the size, amenities and completion date of the new CATS center have not been finalized.

Stoops said the new facility will be a "direct benefit to the student-athletes."

"As you know the time demands on these (players), it's an awful lot," he said. "We work these guys from morning until night, and to have an academic center in our new football building means a great deal to our kids, just for the time commitment for them. They can get many more hours in the CATS center, so it's a great benefit to us and (we) greatly appreciate the support both from Maker's and from Keeneland."

Steve Jones can be reached at (502) 582-7176 and followed on Twitter at @SteveJones_CJ.