LEXINGTON, Ky. (BBN TONIGHT) — Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart recently announced the $7.5 million donation Joe and Kelly Craft are putting towards the Nutter Field House and the reconstruction of a new indoor track facility.
The facility will be named Jim Green Indoor Track and Field Center, after the first African American athlete to graduate from the University of Kentucky and in the Southeastern Conference to win NCAA and SEC Championships.
“I am elated!” Green said. “It is a great honor and so very exciting – to have your name attached to something like this is special. I want to thank the University for everything they have done for me.”
The building will be located adjacent to the UK Outdoor Track and the teams’ locker rooms and strength and conditioning areas in Shively Sports Center. It will feature a high-banked track, enabling the runners to train on a surface that is now standard for NCAA and SEC indoor championships.
“The Jim Green Indoor Track and Field Center will highlight the groundbreaking career of a UK alumnus – the first African American student-athlete to graduate from the University of Kentucky,” Barnhart said. “I am pleased that the facility be named in honor of 1971’s fastest man in the world, Jim Green.”
Friday, the UK Board of Trustees approved the facility.
Green was one of the SEC’s pioneers of integration and was a 2007 inductee into the University of Kentucky Athletics Hall of Fame. He’s an inductee into six Halls of Fame.
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