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Oregon plans to name sports science complex after Mariota

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  • UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
    The University of Oregon is proposing a sports performance complex named after Hawaii-born Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Marcus Mariota.
  • UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
    The University of Oregon is proposing to name a news sports science center for student-athletes named after Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Marcus Mariota.
  • UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
    The proposed Marcus Mariota Sports Performance Complex will feature a boxing ring for training athletes.

The University of Oregon is planning a state-of-the-art sports science and performance complex to be named after its first Heisman Trophy winner, Marcus Mariota, the school’s athletic website said.

If approved by the school’s Board of Trustees, construction would begin on the "Marcus Mariota Sports Performance Complex" in January and be financed by a gift from Nike founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny.

Completion would be targeted for Sept. 16, 2016.

"Marcus is the epitome of a student-athlete, and the Marcus Mariota Sports Performance Complex will be an outstanding tribute to his legacy, " UO athletic director Rob Mullens said in a statement on the website.

Mariota, a Saint Louis School alum, graduated from Oregon in December with a degree in General Sciences and was taken by the Tennessee Titans as the second overall pick of the 2015 NFL Draft. 

The school said equipment in the facility would include "3D motion capture technology, to replace the subjective ‘functional movement screen’ that Oregon and other athletic departments use to measure things like range of motion and identify possible inefficiencies." A neurocognitive center would help in part diagnose and treat concussion symptoms, the school said.

UO director of athletic medicine Dr. Greg Skaggs, who joined two of the fact-finding trips, one that took him to NASA as well several sports science institutes in the United States and Australia, said, "The facility is really based on trying to objectively measure things we currently measure subjectively, as well as provide resources we currently don’t have that we know are important for recovery."

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