Sports sponsorship: The University of Virginia will add women's golf for the 2003-04 academic year. Athletics Director Craig Littlepage announced the move, noting that his staff is developing a timeline for "important decisions to be made regarding staffing, recruiting, scheduling and other administrative matters." Littlepage credited a donation from 1945 Virginia graduate William C. Eacho Jr., whose gift of $1.4 million helped create an endowment for funding women's golf scholarships. With the addition, Virginia will have 13 intercollegiate sports for women and 12 for men.

Miscellaneous: MSG Networks and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) have agreed to a three-year broadcast rights renewal, with MSG televising 22 league contests, including men's basketball, women's basketball and ice hockey. The MSG Network will air the Pepsi MAAC Basketball Game of the Week through the 2003-04 season, as well as six men's games and three women's games during the next three MAAC Basketball Tournaments. MSG also will televise the 2002, 2003 and 2004 MAAC Hockey Championship games ... Host Communications, Inc., the centerpiece subsidiary of Bull Run Corporation, has been named one of the top five sports marketing companies in the world for 2000 by SportsBusiness Journal. Founded in 1972 as Jim Host & Associates, Host Communications provides multimedia, promotional and event management services support to universities, athletics conferences, associations and corporations ... The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has unveiled a new athletics logo as part of the university's convocation activities. The logo, designed by UMBC's department of creative services, celebrates the only mascot in the school's 35-year history -- the (Chesapeake Bay) Retriever. Students, alumni and faculty participated in the process, serving on focus groups in the initial stages, and voting online when the field had been narrowed to two logos. The new Retriever appears somewhat more determined than his predecessor, reflecting the athletics program's success in the Northeast Conference, and on a national level. "We're proud to be the only school in the country with the Retriever as its mascot," said Charles Brown, UMBC's director of athletics. "The Retriever stands for loyalty, strength and pride, and that goes hand-in-hand with our program."

-- Compiled by Gary T. Brown