Business after hours event offers peek at North End Zone facility, a look into football practice
BOONE — The Boone Area Chamber of Commerce hosted a networking event at the North End Zone facility on Appalachian State University’s campus on Aug. 26.
The business after hours event featured foundation partners App State Athletics, Carolina West Wireless, SkyLine/SkyBest and First Horizon Bank. It also featured remarks from App State Athletic Director Doug Gillin and a look into an App State football practice.
“It’s great to get our community together,” President and CEO of the chamber David Jackson said. It has been a challenge to do that over the last couple of years, obviously. So as long as we can do this safely and responsibly, we’re going to continue to give people the chance to come into a beautiful facility like this.”
Jackson said it made sense to host the event at the North End Zone facility as almost like a preseason kickoff party for the fast approaching football season.
“I think more than anything, this community has been built for decades on connections and people being able to get face-to-face and have meaningful conversations and we missed that during COVID-19,” Jackson said. “As long as we’re safe and responsible with it, you know, we hope to be able to have a few more of these before the end of the year.”
Masks were required when not eating or drinking at the event.
Gillin spoke to the crowd of about 80 people about what the new facility would mean not just for the campus, but for the community as well.
“We designed this not only for football (and) for conference space, but also we wanted to bring world class healthcare to the high country — not just for our student athletes, but for our students, our faculty, our staff and our community,” Gillin said. “On the third floor, which is getting built out right now, is going to be world class physical therapy, orthopedic sports medicine with AppOrtho as a partner.”
Gillin said Breakthrough Physical Therapy and AppOrtho will be offering services to students and the public.
“I’ll just finish by thanking everybody,” Gillin said. “It takes a village to run a major Division I athletic department. It takes people investing.”
Continue reading for more details on the next business after hours event.
