Eleanor Baldwin

Eleanor Baldwin is big on basketball—as in the FAU Owls, where her donation of $7.5 million to build a new arena may have set off a lucky streak—or so people say.

Written by MARIE SPEED

Eleanor Baldwin estimates she’s lived in South Florida close to 60 years, having moved here from Chicago when she was in college, and when her parents retired. She obtained her master’s from Northwestern and returned to South Florida, teaching social studies for about 30 years, primarily at Deerfield Beach High School and Coral Springs Middle School.

She’s not sure where her connection to FAU started. (She has given more than $9.5 million to the school, in addition to serious donations to Boca Raton Regional Hospital, theYMCA and Sweet Dream Makers, among others.) It might have been following the post-retirement years she supervised student teachers at FAU. But the connection was forged, and her first major gift gave the president’s campus house its name, followed by the Presidential Suite at FAU Stadium, the Eleanor R. Baldwin History and Traditions Hall and, most recently, the Eleanor R. Baldwin Arena, now known as the“Elly.”

HOW SHE BECAME FAU’S NO. 1 BASKETBALL FAN:

“I just got excited about their sports … I got in with it, and the more I was in it, the more I did. [The basketball arena] is the best donation I ever gave. All the fans started calling me the good luck charm of the team, because after the donation was announced the basketball team won 20 games straight, which is the highest number of consecutive games won by any team. And after that, all the fans and the announcer for the radio show came to start calling the arena the “Elly.”Whenever I was in a group of fans—like when I entered the pregame pep rally, or the NCAA game in NewYork— everyone started chanting‘Elly-Elly-Elly,’ and they still do that. So it’s really been exciting.”

ANY SPECIAL RITUALS FOR A BASKETBALL GAME:

“I wear a certain red FAU jacket. I wear a certain T-shirt … I sit up in the second floor of the arena—it’s a box upstairs, rather than sitting in the chairs along the side of the court. I’m afraid I’ll get hit by a basketball, so I like to sit up there.”

WHY FUNDING THE ARENA HAS BEEN SO SPECIAL: “[The season] was just thrilling, and I was really sorry when they lost that game in Houston. We got to go with the team to New York and to Houston. I’ve gotten to know the boys really well … This [gift] has been really fun; I never had that much fun when I gave to the president’s house or any of these other things, but this one has just been so exciting.”

WHY SHE GIVES BACK:

“There are many institutions in our community that do so much for so many, and it brings me great pleasure to be able to help these institutions financially. And that’s why I do that.”