Dwayne Johnson, A.B. ’95, and Dany Garcia Johnson, B.B.A. ’92, used to spend hours at the edge of Lake Osceola, talking and wondering about what their future would hold. They met here, while Dany was a senior and Dwayne was a freshman on a football scholarship. He would bring her cans of Diet Coke late at night when she was studying, and she would drive him to football practice and pick him up from away games.

Together they endured a “rocky” start—poverty, Dwayne’s brief stint in professional football, and his initially tenuous decision to follow in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps as a professional wrestler. But Dwayne, a.k.a. “The Rock,” climbed quickly to the peak of the World Wrestling Federation, just as Dany swiftly ascended the corporate ladder at Merrill Lynch. Now the couple announce a $2 million gift to the Robert and Judi Prokop Newman Alumni Center, a generous extension of their commitment to their alma mater.

“I enjoy having the opportunity to help shape the future of an entity that in the past helped shape ours,” says Dany, a University trustee and Alumni Board member. Dany and Dwayne’s gift will name the alumni center living room, which will be the “core of activities, the place where people start and finish their business on campus,” says Donna Arbide, M.B.A. ’95, associate vice president of alumni relations. Dany also loved the idea of sponsoring the living room because it will be a place to showcase the successes of alumni.

“I was working in Los Angeles when my wife called me to tell me about the gift, asking if I would like to be known as Dwayne Johnson or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on the plaque after her name,” Dwayne chuckles.

Today Dany is the founder of JDM Partners, a Miami-based wealth management firm, and Dwayne has gone from the ring to the big screen, with movie credits like The Scorpion King, The Mummy Returns, and Be Cool. Fans who can “smell what The Rock is cookin’” will smell a host of new films, including Gridiron Gang, based on a true story about a football coach who uses the game to teach discipline at a juvenile prison. Dwayne will attend a screening of the film sponsored by the UM Alumni Association this fall in Miami. The couple, parents of a 5-year-old named Simone, cite discipline as the source of their good fortune, something they both acquired as student-athletes at the University. “It was here that I learned traits that became part of my ethos—like sacrifice, commitment, achieving my goals in a gracious manner, and learning to deal with failure,” Dwayne recalls.

Dany, who was on the varsity crew team and worked in the dean’s office at the business school, credits her business school mentors with helping to “shape a young New Jersey girl with big hair into a polished young executive.” The Dany and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson Living Room will be a regal space, with 26-foot ceilings, stone floors, comfy furnishings, and a fireplace.

“I enjoy having the opportunity to help shape the future of an entity that in the past helped shape ours.”

--Courtesy of Miami magazine