NCAC Mourns Executive Director
Dennis Collins

June 15, 2009

Dennis Collins, executive director of the North Coast Athletic Conference, passed away suddenly yesterday from a heart attack.

Collins became the first -- and only -- executive director of the NCAC when the league began its first playing season in 1984. For 25 years, he led one of the most successful conferences in all three divisions of the NCAA.

He was a respected national leader and has served as President of the NCAA Division III Commissioners Association, a group he helped to organize in 1989. From 1992-1996, he served as a member of the NCAA Council, the national association's equivalent of a board of directors. In the same period, he chaired the NCAA Dist. IV Postgraduate Scholarship Committee, served on the Division Special Restructuring Task Force and in 1999, completed a six-year term on the NCAA Interpretations Committee. He was awarded the prestigious Meritorious Service Award from the Div. III Commissioners' Association in 2006.

He was a founder of the Intercollegiate Officiating Association, a cooperative amongst 27 NCAA/NAIA colleges that provides regional officiating services. Collins served 17 years as that group's chief administrator. He served on Presidential Advisory/Visiting Committees at both Carnegie Mellon University and Bates College. He also served on the Games Committee of five Kickoff & Pigskin Classics, college football's opening games, between 1984 and 2002. Over the years, Collins guided two membership expansions of the Conference: one in 1988, adding Earlham College and Wittenberg University, and the more recent, the addition of Hiram College and Wabash College in 1998.

Prior to coming to the NCAC, Collins served five years as communications director for the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. He also was sports information director/athletic-alumni director at Case Western Reserve University and news director/sports information director at Otterbein College. For an eight-year period, he operated his own firm, Collins Communications, which provided public relations and photographic services to regional and national clients such as the National Football League.

He was a graduate of The Ohio State University with an undergraduate degree in journalism and served four years in the U.S. Coast Guard. He is survived by his wife Jeanne, and three grown children, Jennifer, Kate and Michael, as well as his mother, sister, brother and their families.

Visitation will be Wednesday, June 17, from 2-4 p.m. and from 6-9 p.m. at McGorray-Hanna Funeral Home, 25620 Center Ridge Rd., in Westlake, Ohio. A funeral mass will be held on Thursday, June 18, at 10 a.m. at St. Mark Catholic Church, 15800 Montrose Ave., in Cleveland, Ohio.