Jan 19, 2010 9:04:27 AM

Myles Brand was remembered as "an active supporter of the Division III philosophy and Division III values" as the Division III Commissioners Association presented its annual Meritorious Service Award posthumously to the NCAA president who lost his battle against cancer last fall.

"He was a champion in many ways of Division III, our philosophy and our identity, and made contributions to Division III through his words and actions," said Chris Martin, commissioner of the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin and president of the association, announcing the award during the division's general business session at the NCAA Convention.

Peg Brand, accepting the award on her husband's behalf following a lengthy standing ovation, said the graduate of Division III members Rensselaer and Rochester would have been "humbled and grateful" for the recognition and would have congratulated the division on the unveiling of its new strategic-positioning platform.

"He would congratulate you on your new identity, to follow your passions and develop your potential," she said, "and he might even invoke those ancient philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, as he often did. And he might even say, those philosophers didn't always get it right.

"In ancient Greece, the philosophers he looked back to divided reason and passions – part of your soul was rational, and part of your soul was less than fully rational. Those were the passions. He didn't think they got that right, because to follow your passions is to be reasonable and rational and deliberate in thought."

She urged the institutional and athletics administrators and faculty members attending the Convention to help students understand what it means to follow their passions.

"We need to help them develop their passions and direct them, and I think you are the perfect representatives of this organization to do that," Brand, a philosophy and women's studies professor at IUPUI, said. "I wish you all the best. If Myles were here, he would say congratulations, and very humbly thank you."

This is the ninth year that the commissioners have presented the award, which recognizes "significant and substantial contributions" over time to Division III athletics.