WHAT: Tennis legend Billie Jean King will be on hand at California State University, Los Angeles to help break ground on the future site of the Rosie Casals/Pancho Gonzalez Tennis Center at the Billie Jean King Sports Complex. The 7,000-foot-center is named in honor of tennis greats Rosie Casals and Richard “Pancho” Gonzalez. This is one of several events to mark the investiture of William A. Covino as Cal State L.A.’s seventh president.
WHO: Joining King and Casals at the groundbreaking ceremony will be President Covino, Cal State L.A.’s Director of Athletics Dan Bridges, and Tennis Hall of Fame inductee Pam Shriver. Pancho Gonzalez’s family members and representatives of the Pancho Gonzalez Youth Foundation will also take part in the festivities.
WHEN: Tuesday, May 6, 10 a.m.-noon.
WHERE: Tennis Courts at Cal State L.A. (Permit parking is available at Lots 5 and 7, and Parking Structure C.)
MORE: The proposed tennis building consists of two floors. The first floor will include the locker rooms, the training facilities, coaches’ offices and a concessions kiosk. The second will include indoor and outdoor viewing areas, not only for tennis matches, but also for soccer and track and field competitions. There will also be meeting rooms, an activities and learning center and a full kitchen to accommodate hospitality and special events.
The tennis center is the first project in a plan to upgrade all the facilities in the 11-acre Billie Jean King Sports Complex at Cal State L.A., which was named in honor of King in fall 2010. King—who attended Cal State L.A. from 1961 to 1964—was inducted into Cal State L.A.’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 1986, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the CSU system at the university’s Commencement ceremony in 1997. In August 2009, President Barack Obama presented her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor the United States government bestows upon a civilian.
INFO: For more information, call Intercollegiate Athletics at Cal State L.A., (323) 343-3080.
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Working for California since 1947: California State University, Los Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 230,000 alumni—with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds—reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six Colleges offer nationally recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty. Cal State L.A. is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Jazz Orchestra and to the Honors College for high-achieving students. Programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include a NASA-funded center for space research and a forensic science program, housed in the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center. www.calstatela.edu
04/29/14