NEWS ON INDIVIDUAL COLLEGES

Maryland-Eastern Shore became the first historically black college accredited by the Professional Golf Association of America to offer the organization's Professional Golf Management program. The 4-1/2 year curriculum for aspiring PGA professionals includes extensive classroom studies, internship experience and player development. Maryland-Eastern Shore is only the 20th university overall to receive the PGA accreditation, joining schools like Arizona State and Florida State, which have both offered the program since 1999. Ferris State was the first accredited school, earning the right to offer the program in 1975.

Northern Arizona will implement a multi-year plan to renovate its athletics facilities. Students, faculty, staff and community members worked together to produce a document that calls for a new women's soccer, women's golf, volleyball and tennis facilities, a new multi-use arena for basketball, concerts and community activities as well as major renovation of the Walkup Skydome and the swimming and track and field facilities.

Lenoir-Rhyne College is continuing work on the Moretz Sports Complex, a major upgrade of sports facilities initiated by a $5.1 million gift – the largest ever to the college – from alumni John and Marilyn Moretz. In addition to funds for athletics, the gift also created the Stephen Harris Moretz Scholarship Fund for nursing students. The athletics facility upgrades include improved facilities for baseball, softball and soccer, as well as the college’s first track and field complex. The work for soccer and track should be complete by August 1. The track, which will circle the soccer field, will consist of eight lanes and will be finished with an Olympic-style synthetic surface. Nearby will be facilities for other field events such as shot put, long jump and pole vault.

Emory & Henry will break ground this spring on the first phase of a $4.5 million enhancement of its athletics stadium. After receiving $2.8 million in gifts and pledges for the project, the college will install artificial turf, field lighting and perimeter fencing. A second phase will bring construction of a field house and a new press box, entrance areas and scoreboard, as well as the improvement of stadium seating areas

Wells College plans to establish a varsity men's basketball team for the 2008-09 season and also will create a club team in women's basketball, with the intention of sponsoring varsity play for women beginning in 2009-10.

Swarthmore College, a perennial national contender in men's tennis that has competed as an independent in the sport for nearly a quarter century, will join in Centennial Conference competition on the courts beginning this spring.

Castleton State College will make football its 20th varsity sport in fall 2009 and will become the seventh school in the North Atlantic Conference with a football program.

The University of New Orleans will reinstate its men’s and women’s tennis and men’s swimming and diving teams in fall 2008. All three programs were suspended after Hurricane Katrina and have not played since the 2004-05 academic year.

La Salle University announced November 19 it will eliminate its football program, which had been reinstated in 1997 after a 56-year hiatus.

The University of New Haven announced it will reinstate football as a varsity sport effective in 2009 and compete as a member of the Northeast-10 Conference.

Colorado State University at Pueblo’s reinstated football program will be playing its first games in 2008 in a newly constructed stadium. The new facility is a hillside construction fashioned like a bowl. Each side seats 3,230 fans.

Wilkes University is reinstating men’s and women’s cross country, 13 years after the programs were discontinued due to lack of participants.

Chatham University will sponsor women’s cross country and women’s water polo beginning during the 2008-09 academic year, boosting to nine the number of sports sponsored by the institution for women.


ODD'S N ENDS

Yes, that's Davidson College in the Elite 8 of the NCAA tournament - student enrollment of 1,700!!!!!

Let the Kelvin Sampson episode at Indiana highlight the fact that playing at the high D1 level for some sports is simply about winning and making money. Here was a coach already on probation from the NCAA making an additional 600 phone calls he was not supposed to make at his new school. And 6 players had the audacity to blow off Interim head coach Dan Dakich’s first practice after Sampson was replaced. Mind you these players are attending school for free…And supporting a coach who broke the rules, got caught and broke the rules again.

I found a recruiting site online recently breaking two rules. One was using endorsements from NCAA coaches, the other was featuring a specific player on the homepage of a website. Both are against NCAA regulations. I emailed the site with a link to the NCAA document that states both of these rules. I got a call back soon thereafter from the website director who hadn't even bothered to read the document I sent him and whose response was the following - "there are hundreds of websites doing this." Perhaps but it doesn't make it right or legal!