Late Spring Hill Badger's Estate Donates 2.5 Million To Hoop Programs

Skip Viragh made sure his gift to Spring Hill College was one that keeps on giving.

Albert P. “Skip” Viragh ’64 loved Spring Hill College. He was also a gifted entrepreneur, became an expert in investment management, and founded the Rydex Fund Group, one of the nation’s most successful mutual fund families in the industry. Viragh also became the greatest benefactor in the college’s history and established an athletic scholarship fund in 2000. He died in 2003 of pancreatic cancer.

And now, a gift from his estate of $2.5 million to that scholarship fund for men’s and women’s basketball that bears his name will further strengthen those programs. The gift includes $500,000 for immediately funded scholarships and $2 million for the scholarship endowment.

Viragh enrolled at Spring Hill College on a basketball scholarship, played for the Badgers for three years, and as his close friends recall with a smile, survived his college accounting classes before graduating in 1964.