Mapes Beach Debuts at Sunset Canyon Recreation Center
February 19, 2020 | Beach Volleyball
LOS ANGELES – UCLA beach volleyball and the UCLA Athletic Department debuted Mapes Beach Wednesday in front of university leadership, donors and special invited guests at the Sunset Canyon Recreation Center.
With the generous donation totaling $1,000,000 from former UCLA tennis student-athlete John Mapes (BA 1990) and his wife Carrie (BA 1990, Med 1991), the Bruins endowed a student-athlete scholarship as well as constructed Mapes Beach, which will serve as home to the back-to-back NCAA Championship UCLA beach volleyball team.
The ceremony began with remarks from UCLA Chancellor Gene Block, beach volleyball head coach Stein Metzger, Executive Director of UCLA Recreation Erinn McMahan, the Alice and Nahum Lainer Family Director of Athletics Dan Guerrero, and John and Carrie Mapes. Each spoke of the meaning of the Mapes Family's generous donation and the opportunities the new facility will provide the UCLA Beach Volleyball program and the student body. Following a ribbon cutting ceremony, the Mapeses took part in the official first serve.
"The opportunity to showcase the premiere beach volleyball program in the country here at Mapes Beach is something that I know we're all excited about and certainly that we are all proud about," said Guerrero.
The endowed scholarship, part of the Four Deep Scholarship Endowment Campaign, is used to support a UCLA student-athlete competing in beach volleyball in pursuing a quality education while earning her degree. The gift is matched at 50 percent through the UCLA Chancellor's Centennial Scholars Match to establish what will be known in perpetuity as the "Mapes Family Centennial Scholars Endowed Scholarship Fund."
"Giving back is very, very important to me and Carrie and our family," said John Mapes. "We're clearly engaged and supportive of the university mission, which is simply to make the global community a better place through research, teaching and service. And UCLA Athletics, and especially a winning athletic program at UCLA, is such a powerful gateway to so much support and resource to support all parts of this amazing campus."
The capital improvements for beach volleyball at Sunset Canyon Recreation Center consisted of adding two more courts and is now complete with four beach volleyball courts. The expanded site affords the beach volleyball team ample space to train and compete and offers a picturesque setting for student-athletes and spectators alike. The courts have been realigned for a more efficient and aesthetic look with three of the courts being used for competition with the fourth serving as a warm-up court. State-of-the-art netting has been installed on two sides with concrete platforms and metal railings used on the other two sides. Beneficiaries of Mapes Beach, in addition to the UCLA beach volleyball team, include UCLA students participating in club, intramural and open recreation programs.
"When it comes down to it, the reason why UCLA is so special, why I come back, why others come back so often is because of the people; people working together for the common good of other Bruins," said Metzger. "And in this case, it's the students and the student-athletes who get to share this incredible experience and these incredible courts here on campus."
Mapes Beach will officially open on Thursday, Feb. 20, when top-ranked UCLA hosts No. 8 Loyola Marymount in the 2020 season opener at 10:00 a.m. PT. The new facility is also slated to host several events in its inaugural season, including the Pac-12 South Tournament (Mar. 7-8) and the Pac-12 Championship (Apr. 23-25).
The gift from the Mapes family was part of the $4.2 billion campus-wide UCLA Centennial Campaign that was announced in 2014. The support directly addressed the Department's primary Centennial Campaign objective: to create a financially sustainable future to build upon UCLA's standing as the premier intercollegiate athletics program in the nation.
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