Austin, Texas -- The University of Texas at Austin announced at a press conference today that RED MC COMBS, owner of the National Football League’s Minnesota Vikings, has given a $50 million gift to the university’s business school, which will be named the Red McCombs School of Business.

The gift is the largest single donation in University of Texas at Austin history. It is only the second time in the 117-year history of the university that one of its schools has been named after an individual. The first was the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs.

"I believe strongly in the quality of leadership at the University of Texas, or I wouldn’t be making this gift," said McCombs, who attended the UT Business School in the late 1940s. "The Texas Business School is already a great school. That’s an indisputable fact, and the national rankings confirm it. My gift is about creating new opportunities. My hope is that the gift will allow the school to be one of the very best in the world, period."

UT President Larry R. Faulkner praised McCombs for his contribution.

"Red McCombs has been a leader and visionary in Texas for many years," Faulkner said. "He is committed to expanding opportunities for all Texans and to building a better future for our state and nation. We are proud and grateful that he has chosen the University of Texas at Austin as the means to accomplish these aspirations. With this gift, Red McCombs is making a Texas-sized impact on the future of this state, now and for generations to come.

McCombs purchased the Vikings in 1998 and has been credited with restoring "Purple Pride" to the Minneapolis community. The team finished 15-1 in McComb’s first year as owner and had its highest attendance in team history, averaging over 63,000 fans per game.

A member of the Texas Business Hall of Fame and a recipient of the UT Distinguished Alumnus, McCombs is equally well-known for his philanthropy, particularly to education and health organizations. He has chaired many fund drives and community service organizations. The McCombs Foundation, established in 1981 by he and his wife Charline, donates as much as $8 million a year to institutions and charities. In 1997, he gave UT woman’s athletics its largest-ever donation -- $3 million for a new softball complex that bears the McCombs’ names.

McCombs, the son of an auto mechanic, grew up in the town of Spur, just east of Lubbock in the Texas panhandle. He was a lineman and receiver at Southwestern University in Georgetown (north of Austin) before transferring to UT, where he was a student in the business school and then in law school in the late 1940s.

In the past 20 years, the UT Business School has risen in national standing. U.S. News and World Report ranks the UT MBA program No.16 and the BBA program among the top five in the United States. The school is noted for innovative programs in technology, entrepreneurship and globalization.

The McCombs gift provides half the capital for a planned $100 million endowment fund to further increase the school’s stature. The gift will be used to recruit and retain top faculty, create greater academic productivity, improve facilities, support student-managed investment funds, and provide scholarships and fellowships.