Alum gives $1.5 million gift to GSU football

Georgia State alumnus Parker “Pete” Petit initially had doubts about his school starting a football team.

Petit, the chairman and CEO of MiMedx Group, a biomaterial-based products company, said he wasn’t sure Georgia State could handle “the rigors required in terms of funding and everything associated with supporting a football team.”

Petit, who earned his MBA from the J. Mack Robinson College of Business, has changed his mind to the tune of $1.5 million, a gift that will go toward the new football team’s practice facility. It’s the largest gift ever made to the Georgia State athletic department.

“I think it sends a message to the community that football’s here,” Georgia State athletic director Cheryl Levick said. “We have a very distinguished donor who believes in our program.”

While Petit has been a longtime benefactor of both Georgia State and his other alma mater, Georgia Tech, this is the first significant donation he has made to the athletic department of either school. Petit said he saw the impact that the team, which begins preseason practice Wednesday, could have on the school and the downtown area. He was further convinced when the school hired Bill Curry, a friend and also a classmate at Tech, to be its coach.

Petit said he concluded that “this football team was so important to Georgia State University in terms of building and rounding out its completeness as a university, I felt compelled to make the gift.”

The Panthers’ facility includes a 100-yard artificial-turf field and a 60-yard grass field. The property also includes a building under renovation that will house a locker room, a weight room and meeting space for the football team. When completed, the school will have spent $18 million on the entire complex, Levick said.