Conferences: The Pioneer Football League announced it will return to a single-division, round-robin format in 2006. The change resulted from the league's reduction to eight members for the 2006 campaign (Austin Peay State University is leaving the conference after the 2005 season). The final round-robin schedule will provide seven league games annually for all teams with alternating seasons of four home/three road and three home/four road. "The full round-robin schedule gives the league the best opportunity to name a true conference champion and to make every conference game meaningful and exciting," said Pioneer Commissioner Patty Viverito. The league grew to its current nine members in 2001 with the addition of four schools -- Austin Peay, Davidson College, Jacksonville University and Morehead State University. That expansion also necessitated the formation of two divisions with existing members Butler University, the University of Dayton, Drake University and Valparaiso University, plus the University of San Diego, forming the PFL North and the newest members becoming the PFL South. Additionally, the league created a championship game between the winners of the two divisions. With the change in regular-season scheduling, the PFL Championship will be discontinued after the 2005 championship game. Without a league championship game, PFL officials say the establishment of a NCAA-sponsored postseason opportunity for one or more PFL teams becomes a high priority. "We hope that the strength of our league will be emphasized through the round-robin format," said Dave Blank, director of athletics at Drake and current chair of the PFL. "We feel strongly that the NCAA should be interested in investigating ways to provide our student-athletes with some form of postseason opportunity."

Facilities: St. John's University (New York) held a grand-opening ceremony September 8 for its state-of-the-art basketball practice facility, the Taffner Field House, at which university officials honored Donald and Eleanor Taffner, for whom the building is named. Eleanor Taffner is a member of the university board of trustees and her husband Donald is an alumnus of the school. "The Taffner Field House is the latest addition toward more modern athletics facilities at St. John's," said Athletics Director Chris Monasch. "The new field house will give our basketball teams the competitive advantages they need and provides the campus with a venue that our entire student body can enjoy." At about 43,000 square feet, the $16 million facility includes four full-size basketball courts (two for varsity basketball and two for student life) and dedicated locker rooms for both student recreation and men's and women's basketball. It also contains new offices and meeting rooms for the men's and women's basketball staffs, and weight training and medical training rooms. The facility also houses office and meeting space for recreation and intramural sports.

Milestones: Pennsylvania State University field hockey head coach Char Morett won her 300th game at the school when the Nittany Lions beat Temple University, 5-0, September 14. Morett's record after the game was 300-105-8 in 19 years at Penn State. Morett has led teams to three Big Ten Conference titles, four Big Ten tournament championships, four NCAA national semifinal appearances and one trip to the NCAA national championship game. She also compiled 37 wins in three years at Boston College. Her 337 career wins ranks fourth all-time among Division I coaches.

Miscellaneous: The National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA), Fox Soccer Channel and 12 Division I men's soccer programs reached an agreement to broadcast a college soccer game of the week on Friday nights this fall. The first telecast was September 16, featuring the University of California, Los Angeles, at Pennsylvania State University. The St. John's University (New York)-University of Connecticut game was shown September 23. Sean Wheelock, a veteran of Major League Soccer broadcasts and other MLS programming, is the primary announcer for each game. "This is an exciting step forward for intercollegiate soccer," said NSCAA President Schellas Hyndman, the men's soccer coach at Southern Methodist University. "This package is a direct result of a tremendous amount of work in a short period of time." The NSCAA and Fox Soccer Channel have hired Cultural Videos Communications of Santa Barbara, California, to handle the live production of all eight games. Future match-ups include Penn State at Indiana University, Bloomington (September 30); University of Maryland, College Park, at Duke University (October 7); the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, at Maryland (October 14); Southern Methodist University at the University of Tulsa (October 21); Duke at North Carolina (October 28); and the University of Virginia at Wake Forest University (November 4) ... The University of California, Berkeley, department of athletics has received a lead gift of $12.5 million as part of a major fund-raising initiative designed to eventually raise $40 million for an endowment benefiting the five aquatic sports at the school. "This gift sets a benchmark for the future funding of sports at Cal," said Athletics Director Sandy Barbour. Four men's swimming and water polo alumni from the 1950s and 1960s contributed to the lead gift. The intent of this gift is to officially launch an initiative to reach a $40 million endowment goal within the next nine years, which will allow the department to create a permanent financial base for operations and scholarships for the programs by 2013-14 ... Morehead State University is the recipient of the 2004-05 Ohio Valley Conference Institutional Academic Achievement Award presented by clothing retailer Aeropostale. The award is presented annually to the member institution with the greatest percentage of its student-athletes named to the OVC Commissioner's Honor Roll for that academic year. The University of Tennessee at Martin finished second in the award standings while Southeast Missouri State University placed third. The OVC also announced a multi-year extension in its corporate sponsorship agreement with Aeropostale.

-- Compiled by Gary T. Brown