Students reacted with cheers, clapping and whoops of joy on March 6 when Head of School Rich Nourie gave them their first glimpse of the new $9 million athletics center that will be built on campus. “Ooh!” “Aah!” and “Wow!” were among the responses when Rich opened the slideshow with a color rendering of the new building.

He gave the presentation to the Upper School students at Morning Assembly in the Muller Auditorium, and then reprised the talk for the Middle School students in the afternoon. Each time, he went into detail about the competition basketball court, training room and team rooms, the large fitness center, a beautiful multi-purpose room and lobby and other aspects of the $9 million Richard N. Berman Athletics Center. He also showed students a rendering of a $3 million all-weather track and synthetic turf field that is proposed in the second phase of the plan.

Rich said construction of the new athletics center was made possible by a two-year fundraising campaign led by co-chairs Susan Rudin ’57 and Marc and David Berman P’20, P’19. Eighty-six families have contributed more than $8 million so far. The new athletics center is being named in memory of Marc Berman’s brother, Richard. Here’s a link for more information about the new center.

He said students will have a chance to say goodbye to the 50-year-old Hallowell Gym with an all-school, Winterfest-like ceremony on May 4, a day before the official groundbreaking ceremony for the new building. Construction is expected to begin in late spring, and Rich alerted students to the disruption that is ahead.

“It’s going to be a little messy around here for a little while,” Rich said. “We’ll live through the mess to get to a beautiful new place.”