Kyle Rudolph helps bring new fitness center to high school alma mater

Kyle Rudolph has never been shy about volunteering his time for various charitable endeavors around the Twin Cities area, but this week the Minnesota Vikings’ tight end gave some aid to a place much closer to his home.

Elder High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, has announced that they are going to be building a brand new fitness center. Rudolph, their most famous graduate, has given a “sizeable donation” to the project to enable it to get the green light. The new Panther Fitness Center will be completed in two phases as more funding is secured for the building.

Rudolph talked about why he wanted to make this a reality for the school that helped launch him to college at Notre Dame and, ultimately, into the NFL.

“The main reason I wanted to do it is I know what this place did for me. I was born a Panther. I was born to a dad that went here, grandfather that went here, uncles that went here, I went here, my brother went here and now we have cousins here. so this place is something that’s always near and dear to my heart and I had every resource and every opportunity when I was here to become the man and the player that I am today and I want kids that are coming here now and in the future to have every opportunity as well.”

The first floor of the building will include a nearly 6,000-square foot weight room, double the size of Elder’s current facility. The second floor will be a multi-purpose room.

The new facility will break ground in August or September, and the first phase of construction is slated to take approximately eight months, which means that the weight room could be usable at around this time next year.

It’s always cool to see players help out their alma mater, so that they can play a role in molding the next generation of athletes that hope to reach the heights that they’ve achieved. Kudos to Kyle Rudolph for making this happen for the student athletes of Elder High School.