Larry Porter was named head football coach at Memphis, where he played as a running back during the early 1990s. He has been assistant head coach at LSU since 2006 and a member of the Tigers’ staff for five seasons. Before that, he served on the staff at Oklahoma State. He also has coached at UT Martin and Arkansas State. Porter was one of 11 participants in this year’s first NCAA Champions Forum to help prepare minority coaches to seek head coaching positions in football.

Other transactions

Director of athletics – Bart Bellairs was named at Southeastern Louisiana after serving for the past 1 ½ years at Savannah State. He also has been senior associate AD at VMI, where he served from 1993 to 2005 as men’s basketball coach … Marilynn Stacey-Suggs was named interim director of athletics at Savannah State.

Assistant athletics director – Eric Wood was named assistant AD for student-athlete development at Arkansas.

Coaches

Baseball – Mike Villano has been hired as head coach at Western Illinois after six seasons on the staff at Central Michigan.

Football – J. D. Brookhart was relieved of head coaching duties after six seasons at Akron … Louisville terminated the contract of Steve Kragthorpe after three seasons. He came to the school after four seasons at Tulsa … Jeff Monken was selected at Georgia Southern, where he was an assistant from 1997 to 2001. He has been on the Georgia Tech staff for the past two years and previously was an assistant at Navy … Mark Snyder resigned after five seasons at Marshall … Al Groh was dismissed at Virginia … Robbie Long was named head coach at DePauw after serving in the position on an interim basis this year, leading the Tigers to their first appearance in the Division III Football Championship … Stacy Adams stepped down as Valparaiso’s football coach.

Swimming and diving – Former U.S. Olympic diving coach Jay Lerew has been hired to direct men’s and women’s diving at Texas A&M. He has been head coach at Team Orlando Diving for the past 11 years.

Volleyball – Natalie Rawson has been named interim head women’s coach at Louisiana-Monroe, replacing John Schmidt, who resigned.

Deaths

Greg Kannerstein, former athletics director and baseball coach at Haverford, died November 24 of complications from mesothelioma. He was 67. He held a number of academic and administrative positions during 41 years at the school, stepping down recently as dean of the college … Eastern Illinois assistant football coach Jeff Hoover was killed in a car crash as he returned home from a playoff game against Southern Illinois. He was 41.