Florida A&M elevated longtime assistant coach Brett Richardson to interim head coach following the departure of head coach Robert Lucas. Richardson has served as an assistant with the program since 1997 and was a baseball student-athlete with the Rattlers from 1990 to 1993.

Other transactions

Assistant directors of athletics – Stephen Spagnoli was hired as the assistant athletics director for sports information, following three years as the sports information director at Lehman.

Coaches

Women's basketball assistants – Saint Augustine's hired Tim Valentine as an assistant coach. Valentine was an assistant women's basketball coach and strength and conditioning coach the past three seasons at NAIA institution Southern Wesleyan.

Softball – Claudio Barbieri, a former high school softball coach, was selected as head coach at Lehman … Oakland named LaDonia Hughes head coach after four seasons as an assistant coach at Western Illinois.

Staff

Sports information – Winston-Salem State appointed Trevin Q. Goodwin interim director of athletics media relations. Goodwin, who served as an assistant athletics media relations director the past four seasons, replaces Chris Zona.

Conferences

The CUNY Athletic Conference rehired Tom Emberley as the assistant director/director of media relations. Emberley worked for the conference in the same capacity from 2007 to 2008 before departing for the East Coast Conference to serve as an assistant commissioner.

Committee vacancies

Division I is seeking nominations for the Initial-Eligibility Waivers Committee. The committee will have five vacancies in January 2011, and two appointees must have expertise in learning disabilities. One appointee must have expertise with international student records review. The nominees are not subject to subdivisional restrictions … Division I also is seeking a nominee for an immediate vacancy on the Women's Gymnastics Committee. The appointee must be from the North Central Region (Brigham Young, Denver, Iowa, Iowa State, Minnesota, Southern Utah, Air Force, Utah and Utah State are eligible). The appointee can be a coach or an administrator.

Division I candidates must be nominated by their institution's multi sport conference. To submit a nomination, contact the conference office.

Information for submissions

Send transactions – including hiring announcements, contract extensions, retirements, milestones and deaths – to transactions@ncaa.org.