The championships will be held in Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium again in 2004. With sites for 2005 and 2006 up for bid, the committees, which met August 10-14 in Indianapolis, heard in-person proposals from Lax4Baltimore, that city's local organizing group, and from a group from Philadelphia that proposed hosting the championships at Lincoln Financial Field, home of the NFL Eagles, which opened this summer. The committees forwarded a recommendation for a site to the Division I Championships/Competition Cabinet that will remain confidential until the cabinet acts in September.

The playing-rules portion of the committee started preparing for the transition of playing-rules responsibilities to the new Men's Lacrosse Rules Committee, an entity separate from the current committees, whose membership will be completed by mid-October. In addition to forwarding a number of items to the new committee for consideration with no consensus, the current committee will request that officials adjust the stick checks they administer during fall scrimmage games. Officials will be asked to do two random checks of the back of sticks during each half.

To do the test, an official will drop the ball in the back of each stick selected, similar to the way the current deep pocket field test is done. The official will roll the ball down to the stop, then turn over the stick. If the ball does not fall out when the official turns the stick over, the offender would serve a one-minute penalty and his team would lose possession. The committee also will instruct officials to do more random tests of faceoff sticks during the fall. Reactions to these tests will be shared with the new rules committee.

The Division I and II members of the new rules committee have yet to be determined. The Division III members are Rob Randall of Nazareth College, Rob Quinn of Colby College and Dave Webster of Dickinson College. Chuck Winters will continue as secretary-rules editor, an ex-officio position. Because of the late transition, the current committee forwarded a request that the incoming committee limit the rules changes for the 2004 season so that the rules book could be completed in time for the sport's winter conventions.

* With all championship games continuing to be at the same site, the committees hope to keep all officiating fees consistent over each division on championship weekend, since officiating assignments are made for that weekend without regard to division. Each committee is recommending to its overseeing governing body that there be a $50 increase in each of the next two years for championship-weekend assignments.

In another issue related to officiating, the committees voted to eliminate the chief bench official (CBO) from all tournament games. The reasons are that this official is not typically used during the regular season, so teams are not used to playing games that include a CBO, nor are officials used to serving as a CBO.

Recommended to the Division II Championships Committee that regions be realigned so that there would be three regions instead of two. The new regions would be known as North, Central and South. Four teams would continue to be selected for the championship, but one would be selected from each region and the fourth would be selected at large.

Currently, two are selected from the Northeast and Southwest regions, respectively. The committee's rationale is that three regions better fit the division's regionalization concept. Under the current alignment, the Northeast has 20 teams and the Southwest has nine, with two teams from each region making the championship.

Elected Le Moyne coach Dan Sheehan as chair to replace Brian Trotter of West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

Prepared for the already-approved change of combining Pools B and C for 2004 championship selections. Under the change, after the determination of the automatic (Pool A) berths, the committee will determine the Pool B selections, then the Pool C selections. Pool C is reserved for institutions in conferences with automatic qualification that are not the conference champion, plus remaining independents and members of non-qualifying conferences.

Discussed the proper ways to adjust to the following approved change: Effective with the coming season, in-region competition will be counted as (1) all competition within an institution's defined region; and (2) all competition within a 200-mile radius from one institution to another.