$13M gift commitment starts fund for athletes

The UCF athletics department has received its largest gift commitment in school history, taking in a $13 million donation that will go into an endowment to fund athletic scholarships.

Gary and Barbara Bryant of Lake Mary presented the gift commitment to the school last month, establishing the Gary and Barbara Bryant Family Athletic Endowed Scholarship Fund to provide scholarships for UCF men’s and women’s athletes.

“We appreciate Gary and Barbara’s investment in our educational and athletic mission at UCF,” UCF athletics director Danny White said in a news release Wednesday. “Their family legacy at UCF will forever provide life-changing scholarship opportunities for hundreds of young men and women to pursue their academic, athletic and personal dreams through the student-athlete experience.”

Gary Bryant, a University of Memphis alum, is a certified accountant who later became the CEO of several insurance companies.

“Barbara and I have always participated in sports and believe in the transformational dooropening value of a college education,” Gary Bryant said in a news release. “We made this commitment to enable student-athletes to get an education and compete in the sport they love at our hometown university. We feel very fortunate to be able to make this commitment and hope other community and alumni friends will support Orlando’s Hometown Team.”

His Memphis roots led the couple to also announce Wednesday they were donating $13 million to the Tigers athletics program to form the Gary and Barbara Bryant Athletic Excellence Fund. It will be used to fund any Memphis athletics department projects.

The couple join Ron Dowdy in giving two major donations to two different American Athletic Conference schools. Dowdy, an East Carolina alum who owns businesses along International Drive in Orlando, donated for the construction of both East Carolina and UCF football stadiums.