Sports sponsorship: Virginia Military Institute will sponsor women's swimming and diving as an NCAA varsity intercollegiate program beginning in the 2005-06 academic year. The program will represent the fifth women's sport offered at the institution (soccer, cross country, and indoor and outdoor track and field are the others; female cadets also compete on the rifle team). "VMI has a rich tradition in intercollegiate swimming, and I'm confident that our new women's team will mature into a successful program and complement our men's team and overall athletics program as well," said VMI Athletics Director Donny White. Bill Nicholson, who has directed the men's swimming and diving program for three years, will assume the additional duties of head women's swim coach. The team will compete as a nonscholarship program in the Northeast Conference, with which the VMI men's program currently holds affiliation. VMI will join NEC women's swim members Campbell University, Central Connecticut State University, Florida A&M University, Gardner-Webb University, Georgetown University, Georgia Southern University, Howard University, North Carolina A&T State University, Radford University, Sacred Heart University, St. Francis College (New York), St. Francis University (Pennsylvania) and Wagner College.

Conferences: The Big East Conference will add Loyola College (Maryland) as an associate member in women's lacrosse effective with the 2005-06 academic year. Loyola joins Boston College; the University of Connecticut; Georgetown University; the University of Notre Dame; Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick; and Syracuse University in the sport. With the eventual departure of Boston College, Loyola will serve as a replacement. Loyola is only one of four schools that has competed as an independent.

Facilities: Boston University christened its Agganis Arena, the new home of the Terriers' ice hockey team, January 3 in a game against the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, one night after closing its old facility, Walter Brown Arena, also against Minnesota. Agganis Arena is part of a larger complex, called the John Hancock Student Village, that includes an existing dormitory and a student recreation center that will open this spring ... As construction of East Carolina University's new baseball stadium nears completion, the school's educational foundation has announced that the William H. Clark family of Greenville has committed the lead gift of $1.5 million in support of the project. East Carolina also has announced it will honor both Clark's generosity and the accomplishments and contributions of former Pirates head coach Keith LeClair, who guided the team from 1997 to 2002 before beginning his battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. LeClair played an integral role in the push for a new, state-of-the-art baseball stadium on the East Carolina campus, which began in earnest with a fund-raising campaign plan in 2001. In honor of both contributors, East Carolina's new baseball stadium will be called Clark-LeClair Stadium. "My family and I are honored and overwhelmed to have our name next to Bill Clark's family on the new stadium," said LeClair. "I truly hope that when people see the LeClair name on the stadium, it represents all ECU coaches and players of the past and present and all the great tradition this baseball program was built on." Clark-LeClair Stadium is scheduled to open March 4, when the Pirates open their season against the University of Michigan in the opening contest of the second annual Keith LeClair Classic. Expenditures for the facility have exceeded $10 million, $9 million of which the school's educational foundation already has raised in private support.

Miscellaneous: Conference USA has entered into long-term agreements with ESPN and College Sports Television (CSTV). The new agreements contain six-year initial terms to begin July 1, 2005. "We are very pleased with these new agreements," said Conference USA Commissioner Britton Banowsky. "The conference's financial goals will be met and we will have more events distributed to a broader audience than ever before." The agreement with ESPN extends the conference's current regular-season football package to include the broadcast of the league's championship game, starting with the inaugural game in 2005. It also encompasses distribution of men's and women's basketball on ESPN/ESPN2 and both tournament championship games. The agreement with CSTV includes significant national and regional exposure for football, men's and women's basketball, and all other Conference USA sports. The CSTV agreement also includes video-on-demand, Internet, broadband, national over-the-air and satellite radio, and wireless distribution as well as corporate marketing rights, and Web site production through CSTV Online, a subsidiary of CSTV. The agreements occur just as Conference USA is preparing for transition into a new membership structure. Beginning in 2005-06, the league will consist of 12 member institutions that all participate in football and men's and women's basketball: the University of Alabama at Birmingham; the University of Central Florida; East Carolina University; the University of Houston; Marshall University, the University of Memphis; Rice University; Southern Methodist University; the University of Southern Mississippi; Tulane University; the University of Tulsa; and the University of Texas at El Paso ... Fans attending four recent Pennsylvania State University athletics events have donated more than $5,000 to support the American Red Cross' relief efforts for survivors of the recent earthquake and tsunami in southern Asia. Penn State fans contributed $5,036.81 at the basketball and wrestling events, which will be directed by the Centre Communities Chapter of the American Red Cross to the International Response Fund. A portion of the donation came from participants at the recent Ice Cream Short Course, sponsored by the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences. Three of the participants were from Jakarta, Indonesia, who had left the country before the disaster in their homeland. "I never cease to be impressed by the tremendous generosity of members of the university community," said Virginia Brown, executive director of the Centre Communities Chapter of the American Red Cross. "Their deep commitment to help those in need locally or worldwide is truly inspiring." Members of the Penn State Student-Athlete Advisory Board, the Morgan Academic Support Center for Student-Athletes and Bryce Jordan Center event staff were among the volunteers who accepted the donations.

-- Compiled by Gary T. Brown