July 9, 2009

The University of Puerto Rico, Cayey, has notified the NCAA that it is withdrawing its membership. The Division II Membership Committee acknowledged the decision at its meeting Thursday in Indianapolis.

Puerto Rico-Cayey’s decision leaves the NCAA with three schools from Puerto Rico, all of which are Division II members. They are Puerto Rico-Bayamon, Puerto Rico-Mayaguez and Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras.

July 7, 2009

Adelphi and Concordia (N.Y.) will affiliate with new conferences in the 2009-10 academic year.

Adelphi officially became a member of the Northeast-10 Conference on July 1 after being invited into the league in December 2007. The Panthers will field teams in 20 of the 23 Northeast-10 sports. Adelphi also sponsors men’s soccer at the Division I level.

Adelphi finished 2008-09 as a member of the East Coast Conference.

With the addition of Adelphi, the Northeast-10 now has 16 member schools (Adelphi, American International, Assumption, Bentley, Franklin Pierce, Le Moyne, Massachusetts-Lowell, Merrimack, New Haven, Pace, St. Anselm, St. Michael’s, St. Rose, Southern Connecticut State, Southern New Hampshire and Stonehill).

The Northeast-10 now is one of three Division II conferences (along with the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference and the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference) with 16 members.

Meanwhile, Concordia (New York) became the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference’s 14th member. As was Adelphi, Concordia previously was a member of the East Coast Conference. The school was offered and accepted membership to the CACC in June 2008.

Concordia offers 11 sports, all of which are CACC-sponsored. All 11 programs will be immediately eligible for CACC and NCAA postseason play.

July 2, 2009

Chowan has become the first non-historically black institution to join the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association.

Chowan, which is reclassifying to NCAA Division II from Division III, will enter the league with 10 of its 12 athletics programs after competing as a football-only member of the CIAA last season. Including Chowan, the conference now has 12 members.

The Hawks, who will begin competition as a full member in August with volleyball and football, will play in the league’s Western Division, which includes Fayetteville State, Johnson C. Smith, Livingstone, Saint Augustine’s and Shaw. Chowan is located in Murfreesboro, North Carolina.

Bowie State, Elizabeth City State, Lincoln (Pennsylvania), St. Paul’s, Virginia State and Virginia Union make up the CIAA’s Eastern Division.

Chowan also will compete in men’s and women’s basketball, baseball, golf, softball, and men’s and women’s tennis. To comply with CIAA sport requirements, Chowan added women’s bowling in February and will embark on the program’s inaugural season in October. In addition, Chowan has plans to revamp the men’s and women’s cross country teams to increase the number of its programs in CIAA competition to 12.

June 25, 2009

Salem International is reorganizing its athletics program in an effort to enhance equipment, facilities, coaching and support.

The reorganization includes discontinuing men’s and women’s golf, men’s tennis and women’s volleyball. Those sports were identified after the school conducted a review of its overall program.

The review came after the Division II Committee on Infractions penalized the school with three years of probation and a reduction of scholarships last November for using ineligible players and demonstrating a lack of institutional control. The West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference also declared Salem International ineligible for regular-season and postseason conference team titles in 2009-10.

Athletics Director Keith Bullion told The Associated Press that the review identified the four sports being dropped as “having the least impact on student-athletes.”

Salem International will field 10 sports in 2009-10: baseball, softball, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s swimming, and men’s and women’s water polo.

June 18, 2009

The Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference plans to add Lake Erie College and Ohio Dominican University as provisional members beginning July 1, 2010.

The GLIAC Presidents Council, made up of the presidents of the league’s 12 current member institutions, voted to accept the two schools during a meeting Tuesday at Findlay. The vote comes two weeks after the GLIAC Executive Council recommended membership for the two schools that made formal presentations to the league June 1.

Membership is conditional based on how the two schools progress through the Division II membership process.

Lake Erie, located in Painesville, Ohio, applied for Division II membership in 2006-07 and is currently in its first year of provisional Division II membership. The school formerly competed as a member of Division III. Ohio Dominican, formerly a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, is completing year one of the two-year candidacy phase.

The two schools would join current GLIAC members Ashland, Ferris State, Findlay, Grand Valley State, Hillsdale, Lake Superior State, Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Northwood (Michigan), Saginaw Valley State, Tiffin and Wayne State (Michigan).

The GLIAC conducts championships in 20 sports, 10 for men and 10 for women.

June 11, 2009

Two Peach Belt Conference schools have announced they’ll reinstate men’s cross country in the next two years.

Armstrong Atlantic State will reinstate the sport this fall, with Augusta State to follow in 2010. Men’s cross country will be the 11th varsity sport at both institutions.

The additions also fulfill the NCAA requirement that schools sponsor at least one men’s and women’s sport in each of the fall, winter and spring seasons Armstrong Atlantic State sponsored men’s cross country through the 1999 season, when it was dropped to make way for the reinstatement of the men’s golf program in 2000-01. Augusta State sponsored men’s cross country through the 2002 season, when it was dropped due to gender-equity considerations.

Nine Peach Belt teams will sponsor men’s cross country by 2010 – Armstrong Atlantic State, Augusta State, Columbus State, Clayton State, Flagler, Francis Marion, Georgia College, North Georgia and UNC Pembroke.

April 6, 2009

Kutztown has announced that it will discontinue its men’s soccer and men’s swimming programs, effective immediately.

Kutztown President F. Javier Cevallos said the decision, made in the face of a challenging economic climate, is expected to save the university up to $150,000

Kutztown officials made their decision after retaining a consulting firm to conduct a funding study on the intercollegiate athletics program. The study focused on six elements for each of the school’s 23 sports, including athletics success, attendance, academic success rate, fund-raising, facilities and media coverage. Athletics Director Greg Bamberger and Charles Woodard, vice president for student services and campus life, recommended that discontinuing men’s soccer and men’s swimming presented “the right combination of financial savings, Title IX proportionality and impact on the overall athletics program.”

February 20, 2009

The East Coast Conference has announced that Chestnut Hill will join the league as an associate member in men’s lacrosse for the 2010 season.

The addition will bring the ECC to 11 members in the sport by 2010. The expansion includes associate members Wheeling Jesuit and Seton Hill, which bring their established programs to the conference, and full conference member Mercy, which will add the sport during the 2009-10 academic year.

Richard Carrington, the newly appointed head coach of the Chestnut Hill men’s lacrosse program, said competing against premier Division II competition will be a challenge for his first-year program, “But I feel that we have recruited the student-athletes who embrace this challenge and are eager to establish an identity for Chestnut Hill men's lacrosse.”

ECC men’s lacrosse programs have won 12 NCAA national championships and have appeared in all but five title games since 1974.

February 5, 2009

The Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association has announced that Lincoln (Missouri) will rejoin the league beginning with the 2010-11 academic year.

Currently a member of the Heartland Conference (and the Great Lakes Football Conference), Lincoln had been a member of the MIAA from 1970-99, forfeiting membership when it appeared the school would not be prepared to field a varsity football program by the 2000-01 academic year. It had dropped the sport after the 1989 season and remained a conference member until the MIAA passed legislation in 1997 requiring all members to sponsor football by 2000-01.

Lincoln now fields teams in football and 10 other sports – men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s track and field, baseball, softball, women’s tennis, and women’s cross country. The Blue Tigers are particularly strong in women’s track and field, having won five straight Division II outdoor championships from 2003-07, and indoor titles in 2004 and 2006.

January 28, 2009

North Georgia has announced it will add men’s and women’s golf this coming fall and that Tom Fowler will coach both programs.

The school has also partnered with Achasta Golf Course (a Jack Nicklaus signature course located just minutes from campus) to be the new home for the Saints. Fowler has been the head golf pro there and has been a PGA professional since 1994.

The addition corresponds with a Peach Belt Conference announcement earlier that the league had voted to add women’s golf as a championship sport beginning in fall 2009, with the first championship tournament to be played in April 2010.

January 26, 2009

Anderson (South Carolina) will become the 10th member of the South Atlantic Conference beginning July 1, 2010, after the SAC Council of Presidents accepted an application for membership from the school. Anderson will be eligible for conference championships and awards starting with the 2010-11 academic year.

Anderson, currently a member of Conference Carolinas, fields 13 sports sponsored by the SAC, in addition to wrestling and men’s and women’s track and field.

The nine other SAC members are Brevard, Carson-Newman, Catawba, Lenoir-Rhyne, Lincoln Memorial, Mars Hill, Newberry, Tusculum and Wingate.

January 26, 2009

The Peach Belt Conference is expanding its membership to 13 institutions after announcing it will add Montevallo and Flagler beginning with the 2009-10 academic year.

Montevallo and Flagler will become full participating members of the Peach Belt for the 2009-10 season. As both schools are already full NCAA Division II members, no provisional period will be required and both will begin competing for Peach Belt championships next fall.

The Saints field men’s teams in baseball, basketball, cross country, golf, soccer and tennis while women’s teams compete in basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, tennis and volleyball.

Montevallo fields men’s teams in baseball, basketball, golf and soccer and sponsors women’s basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, tennis and volleyball.

The other members of the Peach Belt are Armstrong Atlantic State, Augusta State, Clayton State, Columbus State, Francis Marion, Georgia College & State, Georgia Southwestern State, Lander, North Georgia College & State, North Carolina-Pembroke and South Carolina Aiken.

January 21, 2009

The Lone Star Conference will expand to 16 member institutions as league officials announced that Incarnate Word has accepted an invitation to join the conference in July 2010.

The expansion is the Lone Star’s first membership change since 2000, when Harding and Ouachita Baptist left the league. Incarnate Word, located in San Antonio, will be the 28th institution to compete as a member of the 78-year-old Lone Star Conference, and the second San Antonio school to play in the league. Trinity (Texas) was a member from 1931-34 and 1946-49.

Incarnate Word sponsors 19 sports (nine men’s and 10 women’s), including the recent addition of football. The Cardinals will play their first football game on August 29, 2009, and compete as an independent in 2009 with games scheduled against three current Lone Star members – Eastern New Mexico, Midwestern State and East Central.

A former NAIA program, Incarnate Word joined the NCAA Division II ranks as a member of the Heartland Conference in June 1999. The Cardinals have seen 27 teams advance to NCAA postseason play since then.

January 9, 2009

Western Washington University officials announced its football program is ending, "following a careful evaluation to determine how best to ensure the excellence of all University intercollegiate sports."

Western University, a member of the NCAA Division II Great Northwest Athletic Conference, began playing football in 1903 and finished with a 383-380-34 record in 98 seasons.

January 8, 2009

Davis and Elkins has announced plans to establish intercollegiate men’s and women’s swimming and men’s and women’s tennis teams to start competition in the 2009-10 academic year.

The addition of tennis reinstates a sport that was discontinued at Davis and Elkins in 2004. Both tennis teams will compete in the WVIAC and will boost the league’s tennis sponsorship to 11 men’s and 10 women’s teams.

Currently, the WVIAC does not recognize swimming as a championship sport. The Davis and Elkins teams will join the Blue Grass Mountain Conference, composed of Division II and NAIA schools in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Rayfield said the swim teams may join the WVIAC as more conference schools add the sport.