[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Our Goals
- Westlake Hall
- Engineering and Business
Convergence Center - Markin Family Student
Recreation Center - Athletic Performance Center
- Men's Basketball
Practice Facility - Alumni Center
- Academic Excellence
- View Our Video
- View scenes from
the Campaign Gala - Hayden-Clark Alumni Center Groundbreaking
- Westlake Hall Groundbreaking
News & Updates
A passion for athletics
As a child, Timothy Shea became an avid Bradley fan. His mother took him to see basketball games at Robertson Field House in the 1950s. As the years passed his love for Bradley grew, his dedication to athletics deepened and he decided to attend Bradley University.
Today, the Peoria native has a thriving career in real estate. He is president of Peoria Builders, Inc., a local real estate and development company.
Shea demonstrated his life-long commitment to athletics and the university when he made a substantial gift to Bradley in 2002 that enabled Pete Vonachen Stadium at Meinen Field to be converted from a baseball field into a state-of-the-art soccer complex. The new facility was named Shea Stadium in honor of the Shea family. A love for Bradley University has truly become a family legacy. Shea's daughter, Kelley Shea Cressman, is a 1994 graduate of Bradley.
"Being able to make that gift to Bradley and have the Shea name recognized for many years to come was a great honor," Shea said.
Shea Stadium now serves as one of the finest soccer-specific college venues in the nation.
In 2009, Shea was instrumental in developing the annex to the soccer clubhouse. The annex was dedicated to Danny Dahlquist, a sophomore soccer player who died tragically in a 2007 fire. Bradley athletes go to the annex to study, relax and get to know each other off the field. The special place keeps Danny's memory alive among students and the entire university community.
Shea is one of the founding members of the Braves Scholarship Society and a former member of the board and executive committee of the Braves Club. He extended a challenge to all 60,000 Bradley alumni, agreeing to match all new or increased alumni gifts up to $1 million. So successful was the Shea Challenge that alumni gifts and pledges increased by 58% in 2006.
But of all the wonderful things Tim Shea has done for the University, his gift to establish a scholarship to honor his mother is, in Tim's view, the most special. Shea established a soccer scholarship in 2003 in memory of his mom, Betty Mae Jacobs. Betty graduated from Bradley in 1944 and was a devoted Bradley Braves fan. Tim has fond memories of the time he spent with his mother at Bradley sporting events and now her passion for Bradley athletics lives on by providing scholarship support for Bradley's soccer team, a team that has earned recognition nationally.
It is alumni like Tim Shea that make Bradley the university it is today. Once a Brave, always a Brave!