Dan Ruland

Ruland, a native of Annapolis, Maryland, played high school basketball at Annapolis High School for four years before spending one postgraduate year at Fork Union Military Academy. He chose to attend JMU to play for the Dukes and was a 6'8", 240-pound center. He is credited with being a key player during what some consider JMU's greatest era of men's basketball, one in which they earned three straight trips to the NCAA Tournament and won each of their opening round games against traditionally national powerhouse basketball programs.

During Ruland's collegiate career, he scored 1,255 points and grabbed 640 rebounds. He improved his season scoring averages each successive year: 5.9, 8.4, 12.7 and 15.1 points per game, respectively, for a career average of 10.1 points per game. James Madison won the ECAC South regular season title in 1982 and won the ECAC Tournament championships in 1981 and 1983. In each of his final three years, the Dukes qualified for the NCAA Tournament, where they won each of their first-round games against Georgetown (1981), Ohio State (1982) and West Virginia (1983), giving them a reputation as a "giant killer" during the postseason.

In 1984–85, the ECAC South became what is now known as the Colonial Athletic Association, an NCAA Division I athletic conference, but the CAA considers its awards to be official dating back to the days of the ECAC South. Ruland was named the co-CAA Player of the Year with Carlos Yates of George Mason, which was the first-ever CAA Player of the Year honor in men's basketball. Through the 2017–18 season, it is still the only tie in the award's history.

After college, Ruland was drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers in the third round (70th overall) in the 1983 NBA draft. He never played in the league, however, and spent the next eight years playing at various clubs in Europe, the United States' Continental Basketball Association and the United States Basketball League. Since 1991, he has worked regular jobs^{[clarification needed]} in his post-professional basketball life.