SMU Welcomes New Crum Lacrosse and Sports Field

A wide range of SMU club sports teams now have a new field to call home. The University’s new Crum Lacrosse and Sports Field was formally dedicated on February 24.
The field was made possible by a generous gift from Gary T. Crum ’69 and Sylvie P. Crum, whose support reflects their family’s long-time love for lacrosse. The couple’s three children – Ashley, Christopher and Clayton – each played lacrosse in their youth as their sport of choice, with Christopher playing on the SMU club team while an undergraduate. Sylvie Crum is a current board member of the US Lacrosse Foundation.
“The new multipurpose sports field will help promote and support a healthy lifestyle for our students who are involved in club sports,” said SMU President R. Gerald Turner. “The generosity of Gary and Sylvie Crum is a product of their passion for athletics, particularly lacrosse. We are grateful that they are giving more students an opportunity to enjoy sports competition as part of student life at SMU.”
Located along Bush Avenue, south of the George W. Bush Presidential Center, the Crum Lacrosse and Sports Field provides space for practice and games for club teams, including men’s and women’s lacrosse, which will have priority use of the field. SMU’s soccer, baseball and rugby teams also will have opportunities to use the field. The facility consists of a synthetic turf field with 6,945 square feet of space, a field house, six tennis courts and additional parking for Park Cities Plaza. The field house, designed in Collegiate Georgian style in keeping with SMU’s other architecture, includes locker rooms, a concessions area and covered bleachers.
The new field opened for use January 19.
Gary Crum received his B.B.A. from SMU in 1969 and was an active member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He went on to earn his M.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1972, where he later served as the chairman of the McCombs School of Business Advisory Council. Before his retirement from private industry, Crum was co-founder of AIM Management Group and served as director of AMVESCAP PLC. In recognition of his many contributions, Gary Crum has received Distinguished Alumni Awards from SMU and the Edwin L. Cox School of Business and has been inducted into the McCombs School of Business Hall of Fame at the University of Texas at Austin.
Sylvie Crum is active in numerous civic activities in their home community of Houston. Graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in French, she formerly served as the Regent’s representative on the UT Intercollegiate Athletics Council for Women and is a member and former chair of the Longhorn Foundation Advisory Council. She also serves as a director for the US Lacrosse Foundation.
Gary and Sylvie Crum serve as the chief executive officers of the CFP Foundation, a Houston-based charitable organization focused primarily on educational issues related to Texas. They have three children: Ashley, Christopher and Clayton. Continuing the legacy of their father, Ashley ’03 and Christopher ’05 earned B.B.A. degrees at SMU. Clayton earned her B.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, and Christopher went on to earn an M.B.A. from Stanford University.
Gary and Sylvie Crum received SMU’s Mustang Award in 2012 in recognition of their remarkable generosity. Their other gifts to SMU include Crum Commons, Crum Basketball Center, athletics initiatives and scholarships in the Edwin L. Cox School of Business.
“The Second Century Campaign opened new classrooms and residential facilities across the University, and now it’s opened a new athletic field for students,” said SMU Vice President for Development and External Affairs Brad E. Cheves. “Thanks to the inspiring generosity of donors like the Crums, the campaign has helped increase the quality of students, faculty and facilities to higher levels, truly raising SMU’s profile as a private university with a national and global reputation.”
The gift to fund the Crum Lacrosse and Sports Field counts toward SMU Unbridled: The Second Century Campaign, which concluded on Dec. 31 and raised more than $1 billion to support student quality, faculty and academic excellence and the campus experience