Ohio State will receive a $13.5 million donation from 30 members spanning three generations of one family tree.
The donation comes from the Cranes, a Columbus-area family containing numerous OSU graduates. If approved at the OSU Board of Trustees meeting Friday, it will help fund a new sports medicine facility as well as early childhood and foreign language education.
The 140,000-square-foot Jameson Crane Sports Medicine Institute will be located at the corner of Ackerman Road and Fred Taylor Drive and will house biodynamics and large-scale human performance laboratories, full-range physical therapy and rehabilitation areas and state-of-the-art surgical suites to be used for observation and training, according to a press release issued Thursday.
Jameson Crane, a former OSU football player and 1947 graduate, said in a university press release that because his family has such intrinsic ties to OSU, it feels obligated to give back and is happy to do so.
“We are thrilled to be able to make this contribution to enhance the great work of sports medicine at Ohio State, the College of Education and Human Ecology, and the College of Arts and Sciences,” he said. “Columbus has been a very supportive community to the Crane family … I hope our heartfelt contribution will benefit this community in a significant way.”
OSU President E. Gordon Gee praised the donation.
“We are humbled by this tremendous gift,” Gee said in the press release. “The Cranes will advance critical research and education programs … And, in so doing, they set a powerful example of commitment and philanthropy for all of us.”
The gift will be considered a part of the “But for Ohio State” campaign, a fundraising initiative to bring in $2.5 billion to OSU before 2016.