As Hurricane Ike approaches the Gulf Coast, schools in the storm’s projected path are taking precautions. Some are closing their doors, while others are rearranging athletics schedules or canceling events in order to keep student-athletes, fans and staff safe. The storm is expected to make landfall as a category 3 or 4 hurricane somewhere along the Texas coast overnight.

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi closed Wednesday, and its women’s golf team withdrew from the North Texas Women’s Golf Classic scheduled for early next week. The rest of the Islander teams will compete as scheduled.

Texas A&M-Kingsville also closed Wednesday, and the athletics department moved its home football opener to Central Oklahoma. Central Oklahoma will play in Kingsville in 2009.

Texas moved its football game against Arkansas to September 27, an open date for both teams.

Valdosta State and Southern Arkansas, scheduled for kickoff at 8 p.m. Saturday in Magnolia, Arkansas, postponed the contest. No make-up date has been set.

Houston moved its scheduled home game against Air Force to Dallas and moved several women’s soccer games, including matches against Texas and LSU, scheduled for the weekend.

McNeese State cancelled its Saturday football game against Cal Poly and Sam Houston State cancelled its football game against Prairie View A&M. Another Southland Conference team, Stephen F. Austin, cancelled its home football game Saturday against Kentucky Wesleyan. Nicholls State had already cancelled its weekend football contest against Bowie State because of damage from Gustav.

Texas Southern postponed all home athletics events and suspended all team travel over the weekend. The women’s soccer game scheduled for Friday versus Texas Woman’s University was cancelled and Sunday’s game was moved to Monday. The volleyball team will not participate in the Prairie View A&M Invitational over the weekend, but the football team left Thursday morning for their Saturday night game versus Shaw.

Rice cancelled its women’s soccer game against Princeton, scheduled for Sunday, but will play TCU in Fort Worth Friday night. Princeton cancelled its trip to several Texas schools because of Ike. The men’s tennis team cancelled its fall invitational as well.

Mary Hardin-Baylor moved its football home opener against Southern Nazarene up one day. The game will kick off at 6 p.m. tonight. The school also moved its women’s soccer match against Southwestern to 3 p.m. Friday instead of 1 p.m. Saturday.

TCU moved its football game against Stanford from 6 p.m. Saturday to noon Saturday.

St. Edwards rescheduled several games in its Texas MedClinic Regional Crossover women’s volleyball tournament, moving late Friday and Saturday games to Thursday and earlier Friday.

Baylor moved its football game against Washington State from Saturday morning to Friday evening. The game will kick off at 7:30 p.m. Central time. The school also changed its women’s soccer game versus Texas-San Antonio to 5 p.m. Sunday.

Texas Lutheran announced that all university-related events, including athletics contests, would not take place on Friday or Saturday. The nonconference football game between TLU and Trinity (Texas) was played last night, as were the men’s soccer match against Trinity in San Antonio and a women’s volleyball match, also against Trinity in San Antonio. The women and men's golf tournaments, set to be hosted by TLU on Monday and Tuesday in Seguin, have been canceled and rescheduled for October 27-28.

Several other schools will continue to monitor the path of the storm before making final decisions on athletics events.

To assist schools in dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav and, presumably, Hurricane Ike, the NCAA membership services staff is expediting waivers for certain circumstances. Many member schools are applying previously approved waivers to help student-athletes with expenses during times of evacuation.