Jerry Jones, the owner, president and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys, has donated $10.6 million to his alma mater, the University of Arkansas.
According to an official announcement on the school's athletic department website, the donation will go toward a nearly completed Student-Athlete Success Center. It will also pay for a monument to recognize the Razorbacks' 1964 National Championship football team, of which Jones was a co-captain.
"We are grateful to the Jones family for their extraordinary gift which will directly benefit the development of Razorback student-athletes for many years to come," Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics Jeff Long said in the announcement. "It is only fitting that the Jones family, which is committed to the ideals of higher education and has been so deeply intertwined with the University of Arkansas for decades, is an integral part of the most impactful intercollegiate athletics' facility we will have on campus."
Administrators will recommend to the school's Board of Trustees to name the new building the Jerry and Gene Jones Family Student-Athlete Success Center. The building will be geared toward providing the school's 460+ student-athletes with academic, nutritional, personal and professional support.
Jones married his wife Gene in 1963, two years before graduating from Arkansas. He later received a master's degree in business in 1970, but made more than one bad decision before founding Jones Oil and Land Lease. He then bought the Cowboys for $140 million in 1989.
Forbes valued the Cowboys at $3.2 billion and Jones' net worth at $4.2 billion. The $10.6 million donation is roughly 0.25 percent of his net worth.
"The University of Arkansas is a special place and has meant so much to me and our entire family," Jerry Jones said in the announcement. "We are honored to have the opportunity to give back to an institution, an athletics program and a state that has been such an instrumental part of our lives. My experiences at the University of Arkansas as a student-athlete under the legendary Coach Frank Broyles helped shape me as a man and guide me on my future career path. I would not be where I am today without those life lessons learned as a student-athlete at the University of Arkansas."
