Timmy Newsome became the quintessential Dallas Cowboys after graduating from Winston-Salem State University. But few realized he worked as a computer programmer in the off-season that ultimately led to him starting his own company, Newtec, after retiring from the NFL.

As a former baseball student-athlete at Oregon State University, Rob Summers was living the dream with a national championship behind him and a possible major league career in front of him.  But it all changed in an instant when a tragic accident left him with a different dream: merely to walk again. Now the former baseball player is changing the face of paralysis and offering hope for millions who suffer debilitating spinal injuries.

Al Jarreau saw success in three sports at Ripon College. Now he has found success on the stage.

Scared out of her wits, Violet Palmer made history Halloween night in 1997 when she became the first woman to officiate a regular-season NBA game.  The former Division II basketball player has since gone on to referee more than a thousand games at the highest level of basketball, including the NBA playoffs.

With the foundation of a solid college education behind her, Kristina Baskett has managed to parlay her love for gymnastics into a thriving career as a Hollywood stunt performer.

When Jason Hardebeck entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1983, he wanted to be an F-14 Tomcat fighter jet pilot before moving on to become an astronaut. His dreams to soar were inspired by the newly released Hollywood blockbuster movie Top Gun. But much as Tom Cruise’s character Maverick’s journey didn’t turn out as planned, neither did Hardebeck’s.

When Gen. Raymond Odierno joined the football team at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1972, he hadn’t given much thought to a career in the Army. He didn’t come from a military family. He just wanted to play college football.

How do you go from playing college basketball to having the honor of flying Barack Obama on his first flight to Washington, D.C. as president-elect?

Former Wisconsin-La Crosse softball student-athlete Amy Huchthausen has been a front-runner from the get-go; today she is America East Conference’s first female commissioner