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Sacred Heart University Opens Bobby Valentine Health And Recreation Center

Courtesy of Sacred Heart University
Sacred Heart University Executive Director of Athletics and Major League Baseball great Bobby Valentine speaks at the ribbon cutting ceremony of the Bobby Valentine Health and Recreation Center on the Fairfield campus on Tuesday.

The Bobby Valentine Health and Recreation Center is now open to students at Sacred Heart University.

The state-of-the-art fitness facility in Fairfield, Connecticut, is named after Major League Baseball player and manager Bobby Valentine.

He came to Sacred Heart in 2013 as executive director of athletics. He said that at the time the university president gave him a blank canvas to develop a competitive sports program.

“And I was wondering if I had that canvas, if I had to provide my own watercolors, and he says we paint in oil on this campus so what you do will be here forever.”

The three-story facility features an indoor track, a bowling center, a golf simulator, a spin center, a 45-foot climbing wall, exercise and weight-training rooms and a juice bar.

Valentine calls the center the “major exclamation point” of his life.

Disclosure: Sacred Heart University is the licensee of WSHU Public Radio.