Myles Brand diagnosed with pancreatic cancer

From a 2003 Steve Wieberg piece in USA Today, this was the fund that I was referring to that developed under MB. The emergency fund has indeed been around since the early 1990s, but funding and participation skyrocketed under Brand:

"This year, the NCAA is socking another $17 million into the new Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund, which isn't limited to the disadvantaged and is applicable to an array of personal needs. Scheduled to grow by 13% annually, it will contain $57 million by the final year of the CBS/ESPN contract in 2013. The association also hands $50,000 annually to each of its Division I schools for academic support programs, an amount scheduled to increase by 4.25% a year."