Conferences: California State University, Northridge, and the University of California, Riverside, have accepted invitations to join the Big West Conference beginning July 1, 2001. Long Beach State University President Robert Maxson, chair of the league's board of directors, said, "We are pleased to bring these two quality universities into our conference. We feel that both universities have great similarities with our current members and are a solid fit for the future of the conference." Cal State Northridge will continue to compete in the Big Sky Conference for one more season. UC Riverside is moving this fall to the Division I level from Division II in all sports. Both schools will be eligible for Big West Conference championships immediately. UC Riverside must wait until 2004 before it can qualify for the conference men's basketball tournament, however. Cal State Northridge will not join the Big West in football. The school will play as an independent in Division I-AA. The additions bring the Big West to 10 members, including California Polytechnic State University; California State University, Fullerton; University of California, Irvine; Cal State Northridge; UC Riverside; University of California, Santa Barbara; University of Idaho; Long Beach State; University of the Pacific (California); and Utah State University. The league also voted to allow New Mexico State University and the University of North Texas to leave a year early to join the Sun Belt Conference. North Texas will officially begin its affiliation with the Sun Belt on May 1, 2000, while New Mexico State will join June 1. The moves increase the Sun Belt to 12 teams, including the University of Arkansas, Little Rock; Arkansas State University; University of Denver; Florida International University; University of Louisiana at Lafayette; Louisiana Tech University, Middle Tennessee State University; University of New Orleans, New Mexico State; North Texas; University of South Alabama; and Western Kentucky University.

Sports sponsorship: The Texas State University System Board of Regents approved a plan for Southwest Texas State University to move from Division I-AA to Division I-A in football within the next four years. To do so, the school plans to expand its current football stadium to 17,000 seats in time for the 2000 season, and possibly expand to a capacity of 30,000 in the near future. Southwest Texas State athletics director Jim Wacker said the timing of the move coincided with what he predicts will be a move toward the development of regional athletics conferences that will alter or replace existing conferences where member schools are sometimes thousands of miles apart. "What we're betting on is that regionalism is going to win and that geography is going to win," Wacker said. "Common sense is going to win, and that's going to be good for college football." ... The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, will reinstate the sport of field hockey, effective in the fall of 2000. The additional sport will give UMBC 22 varsity sports, 12 for women and 10 for men. The addition also gives the Northeast Conference, of which UMBC is a member, the required number of schools to become eligible for an automatic berth to the Division I Field Hockey Championship. UMBC originally sponsored field hockey in 1977, but the program was discontinued in 1987. The school will begin its search for a head coach this spring.

-- Compiled by Gary T. Brown