Maryville College breaks ground on new track and field facility named in honor of late board chair, MC alumnus
March 25, 2022
Before he was a Maryville College supporter, alumnus and eventual chair of the Board of Directors, Austin Coleman “Cole” Piper ’68 was a runner.
A member of the College’s track and field team during his time as an undergraduate, he excelled at the sport, which was discontinued at Maryville College in 1983. Friday, its resurrection was heralded with the groundbreaking of the Austin Coleman Piper Memorial Track, a facility expected to be ready for competition in August and named in honor of Piper, who died unexpectedly last August.
“I ran a mile relay with him, and he held his own in the 440 (relay),” said Dr. Hugh McCampbell ’66, a former classmate of Piper who attended Friday’s groundbreaking. “He loved to run, and he was pretty good at it. He was also a good friend. Cole was always the kind of guy you’d like to introduce to your mom or your wife, and that says a lot about a man. That was Cole Piper.”
“I think more than anything, Cole would be so pleased to see track and field make a comeback here after its nearly 40-year absence, and he would be humbled to see his name attached to it,” said Maryville College President Dr. Bryan F. Coker, who spoke at the noon groundbreaking ceremony.
Piper, who completed post-graduate work at the University of Tennessee and Penn State, spent most of his career as an executive with Proffitt’s department stores, rising to the level of executive vice president and director of stores before retiring in 1999. He joined the College’s Board of Directors in 2019 and accepted the position of board chair a year later. In 2017, he was instrumental in moving the then-217-year-old former home of Maryville College founder Rev. Isaac Anderson from Knox County to the Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center in Townsend, Tennessee, where the two-story log cabin was dedicated in 2019 as part of the College’s yearlong Bicentennial celebration.
“Lee Corso (ESPN analyst, broadcaster and former coach) says, ‘When you die, you leave pieces of yourself; not just money. It’s about leaving pieces of yourself all around your community,’” said Piper’s brother, Tom Piper ’72, on Friday. “Cole impacted so many people during his lifetime … that it’s clear naming the track after Cole is the College recognizing with much appreciation that Cole left pieces of himself all across the campus of his beloved Maryville College.”
After his death in a traffic accident in Ellicott, New York, the College announced plans for the Austin Coleman Piper Memorial Track, as well as the reinstatement of men’s and women’s track and field teams, last October. In January, MC Director of Athletics Sara Quatrocky announced Kunle Lawson, formerly head coach of track and field and cross country at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia, as Director of Men’s and Women’s Track & Field at Maryville College.
“This complex is going to be the culmination of Cole’s vision and be a facility that will honor him and the College, and make his family and the College proud,” Lawson said during his remarks. “This state-of-the-art facility will boast an eight-lane, quarter-mile track, dual long- and triple-jump runways, a dual jumping pole vault runway and a throws facility.”
With the addition of lights that will make the facility usable for day and night meets, the Austin Coleman Piper Memorial Track will also host the Collegiate Conference of the South track and field championships in 2024.
“This facility is going to be one of the very best, and it’s going to set the standard for another complex that we are working on the fundraising for, the Lower Field Complex … which is going to include locker rooms, team rooms, concessions and restrooms for soccer, tennis, track and field and cross country,” Coker added. “With the addition of men’s and women’s track and field, we’ll have 16 varsity sports teams available for our students, and we’re excited about the opportunity to recruit more students to participate in track and field, while providing an opportunity for our current student-athletes as well.”
The facility is expected to cost $3 million, the bulk of which will be offset by numerous gifts made to Maryville College in Piper’s memory following his death last year, Coker added.
“Gifts already made to Maryville College in memory of Cole Piper have been earmarked for this facility, and additional fundraising for the track facility will be coordinated through our Advancement Office,” Coker said. “I think more than anything, Cole would be so pleased to see track and field make a comeback here after its nearly 40-year absence, and he would be humbled to see his name attached to it.”
