Sports sponsorship: Southeastern Louisiana University has announced that its football program will return in the 2003 season. University officials announced May 21 that the school had surpassed its $5 million fund-raising goal initiated last year to enhance Southeastern Louisiana's overall athletics program, address gender-equity issues and -- if successful -- reinstate football, which was the victim of cost-cutting measures in 1986. Southeastern Louisiana President Randy Moffett told a cheering group of former football players, coaches, faculty, staff, students and community leaders that the university had raised $5.025 million, with much of the money coming from new donors. That support, he said, will allow the university to launch its football program without the use of state dollars. Moffett's predecessor, Sally Clausen, who began the campaign and now is the president of the University of Louisiana System, said Southeastern Louisiana took the right approach in launching the venture without state funds. "I especially want to congratulate the university on surpassing its fund-raising target for men's and women's sports, yet not diluting its efforts to raise funds for academic and cultural activities." Southeastern Louisiana Athletics Director Frank Pergolizzi said the Lions would play as an independent for two years, with plans to enter the Southland Conference in the 2005 season. A search for a coach also has been initiated, and the university hopes to have the position contracted by July 1 ... Howard University has announced the discontinuation of wrestling and baseball as varsity sports, effective immediately. Sondra Norrell-Thomas, Howard's athletics director, said the school "lacks the facilities to support baseball and wrestling." Howard will provide scholarships to all affected students for the remainder of their NCAA eligibility, and students wishing to transfer to another school will receive a release to enable them to immediately compete in baseball and wrestling. The action reduces Howard's varsity program to 19 varsity sports, eight men's and eleven women's ... Old Dominion University will revise its athletics curriculum by adding women's golf and dropping women's cross country, effective with the start of the 2002-03 academic year. "In order to add golf and retain selective excellence from both a financial and an equity perspective, it was necessary to reduce the athletics curriculum by one women's sport," said Old Dominion Athletics Director Jim Jarrett. "Our review determined women's cross country to be the logical sport to drop due to the lack of a quality track facility on campus." The athletics department will conduct a national search for a women's golf coach during the next few months and use the upcoming academic year to recruit student-athletes. The program will conduct its first year of competition in fall 2003. Student-athletes who have cross country scholarships will retain their financial aid. The university has fielded women's cross country teams since 1984-85. The sport was an outgrowth of track and field, which was dropped from the curriculum in 1982-83, followed by the elimination of men's cross country in 1994.

-- Compiled by Gary T. Brown