Dennis Collins, executive director of the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) passed away on Sunday, June 14, in Cleveland, after a suffering from an apparent heart attack.

Collins became the first, and only, executive director of the NCAC when the league began its first year of competition in 1984. For 25 years, he led one of the most successful athletic conferences in all three divisions of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). At that time, the founding member institutions were Allegheny College, Case Western Reserve University, Denison University, Kenyon College, Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University and the College of Wooster.

Over the next 14 years, Collins guided two membership expansions of the Conference — the first in 1988, adding Earlham College and Wittenberg University, and the second in 1998, bringing in Hiram College and Wabash College.

Of Collins, Denison President Dale Knobel, who currently serves as president of the NCAC, said, "Dennis has led the North Coast Athletic Conference since the very beginning and has played a major part in giving it the stature in NCAA that it enjoys today. Not only have we enjoyed his leadership and integrity, but also his friendship. We feel his loss, both professionally and personally."

Collins, a respected national leader in college athletics for a quarter of a century, served as president of the NCAA Division III Commissioners Association, a group he helped to organize in 1989.  From 1992 to 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 District 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 Division III Commissioners' Association in 2006. In addition, Collins was a founder of the Intercollegiate Officiating Association, a cooperative among 27 NCAA and NAIA colleges that provides regional officiating services. Collins served 17 years as that group’s chief administrator. He also served on presidential advisory/visiting committees at both Carnegie Mellon University and Bates College. Between 1984 and 2002, he was a member of the Games Committee of five Kickoff and Pigskin Classics, college football's annual opening game.

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 and athletic-alumni director at Case Western Reserve University, and he served as news director and 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.

Collins was a graduate of Ohio State University with an undergraduate degree in journalism, and he served four years in the U.S. Coast Guard.

He is survived by his wife, Jeanne, and three adult children, Jennifer, Kate and Michael, as well as his mother, sister, brother and their families.

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

Collins remembered in Wednesday's Columbus Dispatch