Bass, Koo Make Generous Financial Donations to Georgia Southern Athletics

STATESBORO, Ga. - Tyler Bass and Younghoe Koo are among the best kickers in the NFL. They’ve made big kicks at the highest level of football, at Georgia Southern, and at Allen E. Paulson Stadium. Thanks to a generous financial donation, the duo will now help prepare the next generation of great Georgia Southern kickers.

Bass and Koo have pledged gifts toward the construction of the new Anthony P. Tippins Family Training Facility, and both will have the goalpost in the new venue named in their honor. The facility is under construction adjacent to Paulson Stadium and is expected to be completed this summer.

Bass, from Columbia, South Carolina, took over for Koo in 2017 and earned second-team All-America honors from Chris Sailer Kicking as a junior in 2018. He lifted the Eagles to a 23-21 Camellia Bowl win with a 40-yard field goal as the horn sounded and finished his career with 54 field goals, the second-most in program history. He was drafted in the sixth round of the 2020 NFL Draft by the Buffalo Bills and has scored 405 points, the third-most among players since entering the league in 2020. He recently signed a four-year extension with the Bills.

"I’m honored to be able to give back to the place that gave me so much,” Bass said. “Georgia Southern will always have a special place in my heart, and I’m grateful to be a small piece of the bright future ahead.”

From Ridgewood, New Jersey, Koo was a finalist for the Lou Groza Award in 2016 and earned third-team All-America honors that season after making 19 of 20 field goals. He still holds the school record for the highest made field goal percentage for a career at 88.6 after making 31 of 35 kicks. Koo signed with the Atlanta Falcons in 2019 and led the NFL in scoring and field goals made in 2020 en route to being named to the Pro Bowl. In his four years with the Falcons, Koo has scored 468 points and made 90.1 percent of his field goals. He signed a five-year contract with the Falcons in 2022.

"I’ll be forever grateful for the opportunity that Georgia Southern has given me as a student-athlete,” Koo said. “I’m blessed to be a part of the Eagle family and excited to pay it forward for the future Eagles. GATA!”

The Anthony P. Tippins Family Training Facility will serve all 17 NCAA-sponsored Georgia Southern athletic programs. The transformative project will benefit the needs of all 430-plus student-athletes while also creating new revenue-generating activities for the department.

The $12.3 million facility features a 91,300-square-foot practice area, highlighted by a fully-covered 120-yard regulation synthetic turf football field. The facility will also feature a 23-yard practice area for supplemental drills. An advanced netting system will be installed to further enhance training opportunities for the student-athletes, particularly in football, baseball, softball, men's soccer, women's soccer and women's track and field.

The facility will have an interior height of 65 feet that will allow for a variety of practice drills (not inclusive of live punting). The practice field will have a 20-foot buffer outside the sideline perimeter that provides a safe space to conduct live play workouts. 

The north and south sides of the structure will be outfitted with tailgating suites that will be utilized on game days. A fully-integrated lightning protection system is being installed in the open-sided facility to afford year-round training. The facility's design also allows for natural ventilation.

Goodwyn, Mills, Cawood, Inc. (GMC) is the project architect and supports the project from both their Atlanta and Savannah offices in Georgia. Brassfield & Gorrie is the general contractor. Other members of the project team include Maxwell-Reddick & Associates civil engineers, Method Engineering Group M/E/P, Tharp Engineering structural engineers and Wood Environmental for geotechnical consulting.

A generous gift from the Anthony P. Tippins Family jump-started the project and the remaining costs were covered through fundraising and donations.