Someone in Cobb County can get a hug whenever they want from Kennesaw State University’s basketball players.
The men's and women's basketball programs have each received a $25,000 gift from a local anonymous donor, the university announced this week.
This the largest donation the women’s program has received and the second-largest for the men’s, the school confirmed.
The $50,000 is an immediate injection of cash that will fund scholarships for student-athletes, Erin Wissing, assistant athletics director for development, said Thursday.
In all, 10 student-athletes will receive scholarships. They’ll be named in fall.
“For someone to come out and contribute that much money, which in a student’s eyes is a million bucks, it’s a gesture that people are invested in them,” Wissing said.
In 2017, KSU will spend $4.06 million in scholarships payments to things like tuition, books and housing, she said.
The school regularly raises about a million of that total amount and supplements the other three-quarters using mostly student fees, Wissing said.
“For us right now as a growing program, gifts like this that were just made moves the needle quickly,” she said.
The donor picked the basketball programs specifically.
“Part of why she chose these sports was that these coaches ... put education first,” Wissing said.
She said the donor is unaffiliated with the college but lives in Cobb.
“It speaks to Cobb County and the whole metro Atlanta area,” Wissing said.
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