When announcing a $40 million private gift to a college athletics department — the largest in its history and one of the largest in school history, too — an athletic director probably shouldn’t need to gird for backlash.

Not in Indiana. On Thursday, Fred Glass was fully be-girded.

“I think if people are willing to look at this, they'll see it as really terrific and appropriate naming," Glass said. "Not everybody will, and I get that. But my responsibility is to be a good steward of the department.”

Glass was speaking, of course, about the big news out of Bloomington, Ind., on Thursday, when the school announced that philanthropist (and heir to Simon Malls, the nation’s largest mall company) Cindy Simon Skjodt had donated $40 million, the most immense sum in the history of IU athletics, to pay for renovations to Assembly Hall.

(Let’s leave aside, for the moment, the entire logistical and philosophical questions of university spending on facilities and salaries in lieu of salaries for revenue-generating players, because that is a rabbit hole we already spend far too much time burrowed in. Moving on.)

Perhaps Indiana fans aren't as enthusiastic about the name change to their arena as they were after beating Kentucky in 2011, but it's the best solution to fix an aging Assembly Hall. Brian Spurlock/US Presswire

The only catch? Simon Skjodt’s name is going on the building. Beginning in 2016, the building will officially be called Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.

There are a half-dozen reasons why this is a good thing: Assembly Hall is 42 years old. Amid renovations to Memorial Stadium and the introduction of Cook, the university has internally debated the merits of renovation against a more expensive, long-term construction project. Glass has been steadfast in his determination to keep Assembly Hall around; the problem was getting enough money to renovate it. In Simon Skjodt, he has done so: The $40 million will pay for all (or nearly all) of Indiana’s planned renovations, including luxury seating, jumbotron installation, entryway and restroom refreshes and escalators in the place of some of the building’s notorious balcony stairwells. That all of this might be accomplished without public funds — or further stress on a football-agnostic athletic department’s budget — is a legitimate win.

But, of course, the price of that donation was a slight tweak to Assembly Hall’s name. Glass knew it might not go over before he even had a chance to announce it. And he was right:

“Give um back the money I don't have a problem with the bathrooms” … “what a shame! ... sell outs--no one will accept that name!” … “Donation or not, if truly cared about IU's traditions it wouldn't be so important to have your name on the building. It's self aggrandizing and prideful.” … “Why not donate and keep your name OFF the building? What a narcissistic stab in the gut to the tradition of IU BB. I need it to have my name on it so everyone knows that I'm so amazing and generous.”

To be fair, this is just a minor sample of the debate going on in the comments of Inside the Hall’s (otherwise incredibly positive) renaming post; there are just as many commenters unbothered by the change. But that is the dynamic Glass was preparing for in his announcement, when he stressed the deep ties to Indiana basketball Simon Skjodt and her family share:

“Cindy's one of us," Glass said. "She went to games as a little girl with her dad. She was a student here. She's been a season-ticket holder. She's from one of the most philanthropic and sports-minded families in the state of Indiana.

“I don’t think it’s too much of an overstatement to say (Simon Skjodt is) saving Assembly Hall for Indiana University,” Glass said. “I think it’s incredibly appropriate that this terrific arena is going to be graced by the name of someone who is in many ways every Hoosier, every member of Hoosier Nation.”

Glass is right about that, too. Without Simon Skjodt, Assembly Hall could have decayed to the point that a $40 million renovation wouldn’t cut it, to the eventual point that it would make more sense to just build a new building and be done with it. Or, perhaps, Indiana could have sought out a partnership like Illinois, turning its arena (now the “State Farm Center”) into one more generically leveraged corporate branding module. How violated would the Indiana traditionalists feel then?

No, sorry, this is the real world. And in the real world, massive facilities upgrades cost money, same as any other building on the campus, and sometimes the people willing to make those donations like to get just a little something — their name — in return. Don’t like it? Leave off college sports. It’s a business. Don’t pretend it’s not.

Also, no one calls the Willis Tower “Willis Tower.” Call it what you want. Sheesh.