BALTIMORE – A photo of the Coppin State men’s and women’s cross country team appears in the Summer 2014 edition of the NCAA Champion magazine. The photo is used in conjunction with the magazine spotlighting the six institutions who received the NCAA Accelerating Academic Success Program Grant. Coppin State is in its second year of the grant.

Among the initiatives that Coppin State is funding are faculty enrichment and peer mentoring programs to support student-athletes; a mobile computer lab away from home for offsite competitions; development of a campus-wide Academic Progress Rate team that will strategically track progress toward the goals and creation of a new academic services department with athletics.

Like many of the institutions that received funding, Coppin State has increased summer and winter term opportunities for its student-athletes. Coppin State has also used the grant money to 13 students through a winter term that the school offers. Another 24 student-athletes were also able to attend summer school with the funds.

Coppin State is also offering an ambitious fifth-year degree completion program for student-athletes who have exhausted their eligibility.

Aimed at helping schools with limited resources achieve success in meeting the requirements of the NCAA Division I Academic Performance Program, the AASP grants are being used from everything from financial aid for summer classes to additional tutoring, mentoring programs, all for student-athletes whose schools have benefited from the funding.

Champion magazine illuminates its readers about the most important issues facing intercollegiate athletics while also promoting the thousands of quality people who support college sports each day. Champion publishes four times annually: January, April, July and October. Each issue of Champion recaps NCAA news from the previous three months, but this magazine offers much more than that.

With an elevated emphasis on quality graphic design and outstanding photography, Champion focuses on the relevant NCAA issues and top people within the organization. And each issue leads off with a cover portrait featuring the most important person in college sports: the student-athlete. People interested in college sports read Champion magazine — but they want to read it more.

The mission of Champion magazine is to illustrate how good people do great things to support intercollegiate athletics.