In front of a room of student athletes, distinguished alumni and head coaches, OSU President Dr. Kayse Shrum announced the name of a new facility set to break ground in 2025.
The Boone Pickens Human Performance Innovation Complex will be home to the Human Performance and Nutrition Research Institute, and it will sit north of the Sherman E. Smith Training Center. The American Rescue Plan Act is funding the $15-million project.
Shrum said the institute’s mission is discovery, development and deliverance of scientific knowledge to empower all people to reach their optimal performance. This mission is fitting for the Boone Pickens name, Shrum said.
“Today, we’re standing in the house that Boone built,” Shrum said. “He was one of the first business leaders in America to bring fitness programs to corporate offices and encourage his colleagues to put on sneakers and move at work… Boone was quoted saying ‘Good health does not just happen to achieve and maintain; It requires individual effort.’”
Shrum, as a previous practicing pediatrician, said she shares that passion for health and fitness. When Lance Walker, the endowed Rick and Gail Muncrief executive director of HPNRI, met Shrum roughly two years ago, he said it was clear they shared a dream.
“It was a dream for OSU to create a living applied research and development laboratory that could also serve as a dynamic, integrated training ecosystem,” Walker said. “It combines the talents of elite performance practitioners and applied performance researchers. What does all that mean?
“It means OSU has the brain power, the athletic prowess, the innovative vision to turn the Boone Pickens Human Performance Innovation Complex into a world-class facility to help both elite athletes and the average person to realize their peak performance.”
One aspect of the research facility will focus on OSU student athletes. Chad Weiberg said it will be the new home of Cowboy Football, putting the athletes immediately adjacent to the indoor practice facility and outdoor practice fields. The facility will also have spaces for student athletes to focus on academic and mental health support, leadership, development and brand building.
“To say all that is a big vision is an understatement, and big visions take big dreamers to see the vision, buy in and help make it happen,” Weiberg said. “Everyone here standing in this place knows that Boone Pickens was that kind of visionary.”
Pickens’ close friend and executive director of the Boone Pickens Foundation Jay Rosser said Pickens was competitive in every aspect of his life and believed health and fitness improve productivity.
“The naming of the Human Performance Innovation Complex reflects his leadership in that field and will prove invaluable for future generations of alums,” Rosser said. “Boone was always about doing it first and doing it the best… that’s what will happen here at the Boone Pickens Human Performance Innovation Complex.”
Rosser said the complex will shape the fitness world and help ordinary Oklahomans live healthier lives. The goal of the complex goes beyond training OSU’s elite athletes, but is a facility geared toward public health across the state. Researchers at HPNRI will work toward creating change to improve lives across many demographics including military personnel, OSU students and senior citizens.
“We consider everyone an athlete, how we fuel, how we chain, how we regenerate, how our people of Oklahoma eat, move and rest,” Walker said. “These are the tenets of performance.”