CINCINNATI — When Larry Sheakley takes in the new $134 million practice and training facility that now officially bears his family name, he sees more than a sleek state-of-the-art structure. He sees the 2010 Sugar Bowl, and a season in which the Cincinnati Bearcats were a second away from reaching the national championship game. He sees the run to the 2021 Cotton Bowl and four-team College Football Playoff. He sees a lifetime spent rooting for Bearcats athletics and how far the football program has come.
“I’ve been a fan my whole life,” said Sheakley, 74. “And when you look back at the last 20 years, we’ve played in the Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Peach Bowl and then the Cotton Bowl the year we made it to the Playoff. That’s incredible compared to where we were.”
It’s why Sheakley and his wife, Rhonda, invested so much into this new facility, which is on schedule to be fully open and operational at the end of May. The University of Cincinnati board of trustees recently voted to approve the official name: the Sheakley Indoor Practice Facility and Sheakley Athletics Performance Center.
“From a legacy standpoint, it’s not about the checks that we wrote, but the time and energy we put into making sure we’re doing things the right way,” Sheakley said. “If you want to play in this arena (of college sports), you better have these kinds of things.”
The checks were important, too. The project, which was approved in May 2022 and began construction in March 2023, was shepherded by a “transformational gift” from the couple, the largest in the history of Cincinnati athletics. Sheakley is the CEO of the Cincinnati-based Sheakley Group, a human resources management company, who owns and invests in 20-plus companies worldwide and has long been Cincinnati’s most prominent booster.
The new facility is built on the same footprint as the former Sheakley Athletics Center, an outdoor practice field that football shared with women’s lacrosse and converted to an air-supported bubble in winter. The upgrade marks a crucial undertaking for the university since it joined the Big 12 in 2023, making a long-awaited return to power conference athletics. Now it has a football facility that properly reflects that status.
“We were way behind in facilities,” said football coach Scott Satterfield, entering his third season. “We needed to get up to the standard, and to have an indoor facility is a must in this conference. And in the world of NIL and the portal, you have to have access to the equipment that will enable kids to recover as fast as possible.”
Cincinnati fit all of it into a three-story, 180,000 square-foot building in its on-campus Varsity Village hub, including a full 120-yard football field with 65-foot ceilings and direct access to the weight and training rooms. There are multiple dining and nutrition stations; training and recovery spaces that feature four massive in-ground tubs (cold, hot, adjustable treadmill floor), a sauna, cryotherapy chamber and dry-float recovery tanks; players lounges, offices and team meeting spaces. There’s also an in-house barber shop.
“I said, ‘Hey, can I get free haircuts?’” quipped Sheakley.
Senior tight end Joe Royer, a Cincinnati native, is entering his second season with the Bearcats after four years at Ohio State.
“This (practice facility) is going to be the nicest one I’ve ever been in,” said Royer, who toured the facility recently. “I’m going to live in here this season. If you’re sore or you’re not feeling right, you’re not using this place the way you should.”
Facility advancements have been somewhat deprioritized in the era of NIL and player compensation, with direct revenue sharing between schools and athletes on the horizon. But the fact that Cincinnati had no true indoor practice facility or specialized performance space was a notable disadvantage at the the Power 4 level, competitively and culturally. That was reinforced by a combined 4-14 record in conference play over the first two seasons in the Big 12, something Satterfield and the Bearcats need to rectify in 2025.
“We’re putting our guys in a facility where they can enhance their play. But in order to have a football team, you also have to have a connected team,” said Satterfield. “In the previous building, it’s eight floors and we’re all over the place. Now we’re able to connect and interact so much better. That’s going to help us.”
Cincinnati, which recently wrapped spring practice, returns a handful of key contributors for 2025 in Royer, quarterback Brendan Sorsby, defensive lineman Dontay Corleone and offensive lineman Gavin Gerhardt. The roster has also added 30-plus new faces via high school recruits and the transfer portal.
A program that is still just three seasons removed from reaching the four-team CFP out of the Group of 5 under Luke Fickell has struggled with its transition to the Big 12, but can also realistically reverse those fortunes in a wide-open conference that saw Arizona State emerge and reach the Playoff last season. The Bearcats’ upcoming move into their new digs will only help those efforts.
“This place has been a winning program,” Royer said, “and we want it going back in that direction.”
(Rendering courtesy of Cincinnati Bearcats Athletics)