The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- May 24, 1999

Notes

Sports sponsorship: Rockford College recently announced that it will sponsor a varsity football team beginning in fall 2000. A head coach will be named by July 1, 1999. College administrators report that the addition of the team is designed to increase enrollment and to correct the campus' gender imbalance. Currently, 68.3 percent of Rockford's students are female and 31.7 percent are male ... State University College at Cortland is reviving its women's ice hockey program, beginning with the 2000-01 season. Between 1977 and 1982, Cortland State had one of the most successful women's ice hockey programs in the nation. The Red Dragons were 44-24-3 during that time and never had a losing season. College officials cite both the grow-ing popularity of ice hockey and the fact that Cortland State's conference, the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC), sponsored competition among 16 Division III teams last year. Current renovations in the college's Park Center, which houses the ice arena, include new locker rooms for both the men's and women's hockey teams. School officials hope to have a coach on board by the end of this month.

Conferences: Five new members were recently voted into the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) for the 1999-00 academic year. Four of the institutions are members of Division III, and one is a provisional member of Division III. They are: Lasell College, Newbury College (a provisional member), Simmons College, Thiel College and Washington College (Maryland). With the addition of those new members, the ECAC's membership -- in all three divisions -- will stand at 302 institutions.

Milestones: Don Schroer, Emory University, 500 victories in men's tennis. Schroer becomes just the fifth coach in Division III to tally 500 wins ... Bob Corradi, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, 400 victories in baseball. Ken Perrone, Salem State College, 400 victories in baseball. Corradi and Perrone earned their 400th wins against each other and on the same afternoon as their teams split a Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference double-header ... John Sirianni, Simpson College, 350 victories in baseball ... Bill Pilat, Roanoke College, 100 victories in men's lacrosse.

-- Compiled by Kay Hawes