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Alumni donate $100,000 to Miami

Endowment goes to Spanish majors and student-athletes.

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Staff Report 9:34 PM Sunday, February 12, 2012

OXFORD — A $100,000 gift has set up new endowments at Miami University supporting study abroad experiences for Spanish majors and scholarships for men’s basketball players.

Carol Peery Ayers (Miami ’77) and Randy Ayers (Miami ’78) donated to the departments at Miami they said made them who they are and helped them succeed, according to a news release.

The Carol Peery Ayers and Randy Ayers Men’s Basketball Scholarship will be awarded to one or more student-athletes from Miami’s varsity men’s basketball program. The Washington R. Vázquez Scholarship Award will be awarded to Spanish majors for study in Spanish-speaking countries.

“We met at Miami, and we both share a deep loyalty to Miami,” Carol said. “We wanted to pay those experiences forward so future students will have the same types of life-changing opportunities that we enjoyed.”

A 1991 inductee into the Miami Athletics Hall of Fame, Randy Ayers was a four-year men’s basketball letter winner who helped lead Miami to the 1978 Mid-American Conference Championship and a memorable NCAA Tournament upset of defending national champion Marquette University. Presently the top assistant coach for the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets, Randy has served in head coaching positions with both Ohio State University and the Philadelphia 76ers. The 1991 Associated Press National College Basketball Coach of the Year, Randy received his coaching start as a graduate assistant at Miami.

“Randy has been a remarkable ambassador for Miami University and our men’s basketball program at the highest levels of intercollegiate and professional basketball,” said Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Brad Bates. “We are grateful that Carol and Randy have so generously invested in Miami basketball, and it is fitting that the Ayers name will not only be forever associated with Miami men’s basketball but also that its legacy will be carried on by generations of Miami student-athletes.”

Carol Peery Ayers, who studied abroad in both Costa Rica and Italy as an undergraduate, earned Spanish degrees from Miami’s College of Arts and Science and School of Education, Health and Society. She was also a charter member of Miami’s Lambda Mu Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc.

Carol has taught Spanish for more than 30 years and currently serves as a Spanish teacher and upper school diversity coordinator at Germantown Academy in Fort Washington, Pa.

The Washington R. Vázquez Scholarship Award was created out of Carol’s appreciation for her experience in Miami’s Spanish and Portuguese department and in honor of a former professor. Vázquez, also a playwright, fused Carol’s loves for both Spanish and acting into a co-curricular theatre group called La Máscara, which remains among her fondest Miami memories.

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