Facilities: The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, has broken ground on $100 million in facilities improvements. School officials said that $50 million will be raised through private donations and that more than $25 million already has been secured. The other $50 million will be matched from bond proceeds. The project includes a renovation of Bryant Hall into a state-of-the-art academic center, expansion and renovation of the football facility, addition of a new strength and conditioning center and construction of new women's soccer and combined men's and women's tennis stadium. Completion date for the soccer stadium will be late 2003, with the rest finished in 2004. The athletics department also is in the process of selecting architects for two other projects, the modernization of Coleman Coliseum and a north end zone expansion of Bryant-Denny Stadium. "These are exciting projects that will benefit and support all of our student-athletes in a way that will reap far-reaching and long-lasting rewards," Alabama Athletics Director Mal Moore said ... The University of North Carolina, Charlotte, dedicated "Charles Hayward Memorial Court" before the school's men's basketball practice February 2. The Hayward Memorial Court is the 49ers' new practice court within the Miltimore-Wallis Athletics Training and Academic Center. The center is an addition onto the Barnhardt Student Activity Center, which houses Halton Arena. Hayward, a member of the 49ers team from 1997 to 1999, was diagnosed with leukemia in 1997. The disease went into remission after treatment, and Hayward worked to return to the team in 1998. He competed in the first 10 games of the 1998-99 season as a red-shirt freshman, setting a Halton Arena record with six blocked shots vs. George Washington November 29. Less than a month later, however, the leukemia returned. Hayward died September 12, 1999. His No. 45 jersey was retired three days later.

Sports sponsorship: The University of Oregon will add women's lacrosse as its 18th sport beginning in 2004-05. The addition is the first at Oregon since women's soccer in 1996-97 and increases the number of women's sports offered at the school to 10. The decision culminates a 21-month study headed by Senior Associate Athletics Director Renee Baumgartner, who said that lacrosse emerged as the best fit for Oregon among the list of other potential women's sports, which included swimming and diving, gymnastics, water polo, rowing, and equestrian. "Lacrosse is a sport that gives us an excellent opportunity to be a front-runner on the West Coast and field a competitive team," Baumgartner said. Oregon will initiate a national search for a head coach this spring. Administrators expect to offer a full complement of the 12 scholarships allowed in lacrosse by Division I. The Ducks will become the first Division I team in the Pacific Northwest and the third current Pacific-10 Conference institution (Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, are the others) to sponsor women's lacrosse ... Fairfield University announced it will eliminate football and men's ice hockey beginning with the 2003-04 academic year. This will reduce the number of varsity athletic programs for men and women at the university to 19. Fairfield President Aloysius P. Kelley said it was a financial decision reached during annual budget preparations by the university's senior administration and endorsed by the Board of Trustees. "Decisions such as this are always difficult, and our first concern is for those student-athletes, coaches and other personnel who will be affected directly by it," he said. "The university will honor commitments made to those individuals and will assist them in every way possible. At the same time, this is a decision that will give us a greater opportunity to maintain our ambitious goals in the area of Division I intercollegiate athletics while strengthening the resources we need to meet our primary mission of educating young men and women." Kelley said that the elimination of both programs would save about $570,000 annually. Those funds, he said, would be reallocated to support the university's student financial aid program. The football program at Fairfield did not offer athletic grants-in-aid. The four grants the university designated for the ice hockey program will be redistributed among other sports programs. "The costs of simply maintaining the current level of support for our Division I intercollegiate athletic program are escalating," said Fairfield Athletics Director Eugene Doris. "Even though football offers no athletic grants-in-aid, and hockey receives limited support in that area, each has significant operating costs. We have had a growing awareness of the level of increased funding each program would require in the immediate future simply to maintain them."

Milestones: Texas Tech University men's basketball coach Bob Knight became the sixth Division I coach to win 800 games February 5 when his Red Raiders defeated the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 75-49. The other coaches to have reached the plateau are Dean Smith, former men's coach at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Adolph Rupp, former men's coach at the University of Kentucky; Jim Phelan, men's coach at Mount St. Mary's College who will retire at the end of this season; Pat Summit, current women's coach at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and Jody Conradt, current women's coach at the University of Texas at Austin. Summit and Conradt earned their 800th victories earlier this year. "I've had some milestones, but I've never had a milestone in front of a crowd that I appreciated so much," Knight said after the game. "I've probably looked back on the time that I've coached and I don't think there's anything I could have done, had the ability to do, that would have given me as much enjoyment or as much heartache." Knight, whose career record stood at 800-303 after the victory, has been a head coach for 37 years at three Division I schools. He earned his 100th victory at the U.S. Military Academy, then went 662-239 and won three national championships at Indiana University, Bloomington, from 1971 to 2000. He is 36-14 with Texas Tech ... Oklahoma State University men's basketball coach Eddie Sutton coached in his 1,000th game February 5, a 63-55 win over Kansas State University. Sutton, in his 33rd season overall, is 720-280. He is the 17th coach in Division I history to coach in 1,000 games ... University of Oregon men's basketball coach Ernie Kent won his 200th career game February 6 when the Ducks defeated Stanford, 79-64. Kent is 200-143 in 12 seasons and 110-634 in six seasons at Oregon.

-- Compiled by Gary T. Brown