Building up a brand is nothing new to American Athletic Conference Commissioner Mike Aresco. The AAC will enter its third year this fall, and Aresco believes the league, which was created amid all the moves in conference realignment, is on pace to hit its stride.

Coppin State University men’s basketball coach Michael Grant has been coaching college for 32 years – long enough to know his relationships with players don’t end when the buzzer sounds. This spring, after the West Baltimore neighborhood surrounding Coppin State erupted in racially charged violence following the funeral of a 25-year-old black man who died in police custody, Grant became more than a coach – and his players and other Coppin State student-athletes became something more, too.

Now the head rowing coach at Barry University in Miami, Boban Rankovic was an assistant when the team was runner-up at the 2013 NCAA Division II Rowing Championships. Ethnic conflict formed the backdrop of Rankovic’s childhood in the former Yugoslavia.

University of New Haven volleyball player Ashley Dalton collapsed, and her heart stopped. Then, she came back – to life and to volleyball.

A few weeks into his new job at the NCAA, Oliver Luck took time to discuss his winding path to the national office and his views on some of the biggest questions in college sports.

Collegiate Water Polo Association Commissioner Dan Sharadin donated a kidney to save his wife – and saved himself, too.

China Jude’s résumé has not always pointed toward a high-level career in college athletics administration.

Before he was a student-athlete, Jason Shuler served four years and three tours in the U.S. Navy as a quartermaster third class, working as a search-and-rescue swimmer.

At 87, “Coach Z” is in his 31st year coaching cross country and track and field at Division III Hunter College.

Last fall, debilitating seizures sidelined Jerry Kill for a conference matchup, and doctors forbade him from driving or flying to the next one, too. He found his way there anyway.