Hawkeye wrestling facility honors $7 million gift in new name

IOWA CITY — With more than a year of construction to go on a new 38,500-square-foot, two-level Hawkeye wrestling practice facility, the University of Iowa is moving to officially name it after a family that made the $7 million lead gift.

The “Goschke Family Wrestling Training Center” will honor Doug and Ann Goschke — Iowa natives who split their time between Iowa and Florida.

The couple made their first major donation to UI Athletics in March 2019 with a $1 million gift for the Kinnick Edge Campaign — a $25 million fundraising effort to renovate Kinnick Stadium’s north end zone.

Avid art collectors, they gifted the UI Stanley Museum of Art a Norman Rockwell painting in October 2020, and then more recently committed $7 million to the Carver Circle Campaign, which UI Athletics launched for a new wrestling practice facility.

Officials said the facility — which originally was expected to cost $17.3 million before inflation and an expanded scope for the new women’s wrestling team drove the price up to $31.6 million — will be funded entirely by gifts. The current Carver Circle campaign has raised nearly $27 million in gift commitments to date.

Construction adjacent Carver-Hawkeye Arena, where the wrestling teams compete, began in summer 2022 and is scheduled for completion in spring 2024. The UI is asking the Board of Regents to approve the new Goschke Family Wrestling Training Center name next week.

The facility will include a tunnel connecting it to Carver; a 13,000-square-foot wrestling room; strength training area; locker rooms for both the men’s and women’s teams; and other athletic training amenities. It also will incorporate staff offices, a student-athlete lounge, recruiting meeting rooms, and a street-level “hall of champions” showcasing Iowa wrestling’s history and success.

Doug Goschke is a former accountant and consultant in lean manufacturing, efficiency and financial spaces who — along with his partners — sold their business in 2008. He and his wife now are retired and were inspired to give to Hawkeye wrestling by its “culture of passion, hard work, and determination,” according to a UI naming proposal.

The couple in December 2020 also gave a significant gift of $2 million toward a new University of Northern Iowa football outdoor artificial turf practice facility. UNI, like the UI, wanted to honor the donation by naming its field “The Doug and Ann Goschke Outdoor Practice Facility.”

The pair in that case made the donation in honor of Doug’s late sister, Junean Goschke, who graduated in 1966 from what then was the State College of Iowa and today is UNI.

Not only does the new Hawkeye wrestling facility aim to support the program’s “championship standards and validate Iowa City’s reputation as the greatest wrestling city in the world,” it aims to host international competitions.

“The new facility also will allow the university to continue its tradition of hosting the world’s top senior level and international wrestling events, including the U.S. Olympic Trials and the United World Wrestling Cup, which attract tens of thousands of wrestling fans to Iowa City and delivers a multimillion dollar economic impact to the community,” according to the Hawkeye wrestling program.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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