Robert L. Waltrip Training Center

The Robert L. Waltrip Indoor Training Center is the newest addition to a series of facilities improvements that have transformed the look of Rice Athletics over the past decade.

The 80,000 square foot inflatable structure rose up from the infield area of the bike track west of Rice Stadium for the first time in late July of 2020, creating a facility to house practices, intramurals and other events when weather put those events in peril. The Waltrip Center affords Rice coaches the ability to integrate practice times into student-athlete academic schedules no matter the weather conditions. The new space will also host club and intramural sports and other campus and community activities.

While completion of the project had been delayed by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the new facility quickly became a component of Rice University’s protocols to prevent the spread of the disease. Faced with the need for additional meeting space due to university restrictions on the size of gatherings, the Owls football team used part of the center for instruction both in a classroom setting and then for walkthroughs with position groups shortly after it opened its doors. In August of 2020, the center became a COVID-19 testing site for all incoming freshmen prior to the start of O Week as well as the when remainder of the student body returned to campus.

Service Corporation International (SCI) founder and chairman emeritus, Robert L. Waltrip '53 provided the lead gift for the facility which was built and installed by Arizon Building Systems Construction. Anslow Bryant provided site preparation and infrastructure. Waltrip received a full football scholarship under coach Jess Neely and matriculated with the Class of 1953. However, after the unexpected passing of his father, he left Rice to assume management of the family's funeral home business. Waltrip began buying additional funeral homes in the 1960s, amassing a network that would grow to include more than 2,100 funeral service locations and cemeteries. He took Service Corporation International public in 1969. It is now North America's largest single provider of funeral, cremation and cemetery services. He would complete his education at the University of Houston where he holds a bachelor's degree in business administration.