AUGUSTA, Ga. (Oct. 24, 2025) – If one phrase may amply describe the brand new Alvin and Yvette Harris Sports Performance Center at Augusta College it is “game-changer.” It was a typical theme shared by the audio system through the ribbon-cutting occasion held Wednesday, Oct. 22, to formally open the middle and honor the donors who made it potential.
“This facility is a game-changer. It’ll absolutely remodel the way in which our student-athletes prepare, the way in which they compete and the way in which they develop,” stated Augusta College President Russell T. Keen. “It equips our student-athletes to be their greatest on the sphere, on the court docket, within the classroom and in life. The facilities are excellent, and the affect might be felt for generations.”
New Power and Conditioning Coach Jacob Topple is witnessing a shift.
“It has turn into an absolute game-changer with what we’re in a position to do with our student-athletes. We are able to roll 40 to 50 athletes by means of in 45 minutes and get achieved precisely what we have to do so far as pace growth, mobility and power,” Topple stated. “Our programming has turn into extra environment friendly, and I can already see the affect on our student-athletes.”
He stated the house is altering the attitudes of the student-athletes, too.
“They love coming by means of these doorways. This middle builds tradition, it builds teamwork and it builds character. And it depends on self-discipline and consistency, similar to on a regular basis life does outdoors of right here,” stated Topple, who joined AU about three months in the past to guide all facets of athletic efficiency coaching throughout Augusta’s 15 NCAA packages.
“We took about six months to verify we discovered the best individual for our new head coach for power and conditioning,” stated Athletic Director Ryan Erlacher. “Jacob Topple has been an unbelievable addition to our workforce. His work ethic, character and integrity have our student-athletes doing issues I’ve by no means seen. We’re very lucky to have him right here at AU.”
Greater than 100 individuals, together with college leaders, student-athletes, coaches, workers and household and pals of the Harrises attended the opening occasion and toured the brand new house inside Christenberry Fieldhouse on the Forest Hills Campus. The middle is provided with weight benches, treadmills, stationery bikes and different important health machines, in addition to free weights and a wide range of coaching instruments to assist student-athletes enhance power and improve efficiency, whereas additionally offering acceptable conditioning to assist forestall accidents.
At the very least 4 instances the dimensions of the earlier weight room, this contemporary coaching and health zone fills many of the higher mezzanine on the south aspect of Christenberry, spanning about 4,000 sq. toes to accommodate extra student-athletes concurrently, safely and comfortably.
“Once I first joined Augusta College three years in the past, our golf workforce did not have a facility the place we may all prepare collectively,” stated Dean Wilken, a senior on the lads’s golf workforce. “The creation of the brand new (gymnasium) offers each student-athlete the house to return collectively, push one another, and preserve chasing championships aspect by aspect. It is not nearly bodily efficiency. It is about psychological power, workforce unity and pleasure.”
The Alvin and Yvette Harris Sports activities Efficiency Middle is crucial for all of AU’s student-athletetes, together with the spirit squads of cheer and dance, in addition to for individuals who compete in baseball, basketball, cross nation, golf, softball, tennis, observe and area and volleyball.
“There have been many upgrades occurring prior to now yr at Christenberry, however the Alvin and Yvette Harris Sports activities Efficiency Middle has had a direct affect for us student-athletes,” stated Sierra Burns, a junior girls’s basketball participant. “It has been superb to have limitless entry to the newest tools and the assistance of our superb weight lifting coach, Coach Topple.”
Wilken and Burns, who’re each college students within the James M. Hull College of Business, spoke on behalf of student-athletes about their experiences within the new middle. Wilken emphasised that the addition of Topple on the facility units up student-athletes for an additional stage of success.
For AU’s athletics director it’s a dream come true.
“The Alvin and Yvette Harris Sports activities Efficiency Middle will elevate each side of how our groups prepare for competitors,” Erlacher stated. “For us to achieve our true potential, we should provide athletics services that compete with one of the best within the nation. This new house will considerably affect our recruiting and retention efforts and assist us develop champions. Our student-athletes deserve firstclass
services, and this middle displays the continued funding Augusta College and our supporters are pouring into the student-athlete expertise.”
When Erlacher first approached the Harrises about supporting his imaginative and prescient for a sports activities efficiency middle, the couple needed to make certain this venture wouldn’t simply assist with two or three sports activities, however that it might affect each single one in every of AU’s student-athletes.
“This facility won’t solely affect each student-athlete at present right here at AU, it’ll make a major distinction for each student-athlete that walks by means of our doorways for a few years to return,” Erlacher assured them.
Alvin “Al” and Yvette Harris have been pillars of service and philanthropy for Augusta College for almost 30 years. Their relationship with AU started round 1996 when Al – working for Harris and Sons, his father’s two-Greyhound-bus enterprise – drove the Augusta Jaguars basketball workforce to a few journey video games in Milledgeville, Georgia, and Greensboro, North Carolina. This prompted extra athletics transport requests, and later, scholar shuttles.
In 1998, along with his father’s blessing, Al and Yvette, who can be the workplace supervisor, took their greater imaginative and prescient for the household enterprise and grew it into Horizon Motor Coach, which as we speak manages about 40 buses and greater than 70 drivers. For greater than 15 years, Horizon has been the official supplier for the JagExpress shuttle service which operates as many as 17 buses a day connecting college students, school and workers throughout the college’s Augusta campuses.
Al’s sister graduated from AU, and Yvette attended for a short time till the enterprise took off. On high of serving as president and CEO of Horizon, Al at present serves as a member of the Augusta University Foundation Board of Trustees. Because the co-immediate previous chair, he helped steer the consolidation of the AU and Georgia Health Sciences foundations a number of years in the past.
Jazz lovers, Al and Yvette established the Harris-Horizon Jazz Program in 2016, working with Wycliffe Gordon within the Katherine Reese Pamplin College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, to carry jazz celebrities resembling Jimmy Owens and Houston Particular person to carry out in Augusta. Additionally they created the Alvin & Yvette Harris Scholarship Endowment, which has supplied need-based scholarships for 5 undergraduate college students to date, and since it’s an endowment, it is going to proceed offering scholar scholarships in perpetuity.
“Their giving has touched almost each nook of this establishment – superb arts, nursing, enterprise, allied well being sciences, athletics, and our Children’s Hospital of Georgia,” Eager informed the visitors on the ribbon-cutting. “Your heartfelt help for Augusta College, our college students and our packages mirror the exceptional character and compassion you each carry to each single factor you do. On behalfof your complete AU neighborhood, I thanks for being an inspiration and for making a long-lasting distinction within the lives of these we serve – our college students.”
See all of the images from the ribbon-cutting ceremony here
You may learn extra concerning the tools and see images of the power at augustajags.com.
CONTACT: Denise H. Parrish, mparrish@augusta.edu, 706-831-3148
