BRIEFLY: WESTERN KENTUCKY FOOTBALL TO LEAVE OVC

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. -- After a brief two-year return to the Ohio Valley Conference, Western Kentucky's football team will leave the league after the 2000 season.

The school said Monday it's seeking membership for the team in the Gateway Football Conference, following a decision by the OVC's leadership that all sports teams at member schools must be affiliated with the OVC.

Western was an OVC member from 1948 until 1982, when it joined the football-less Sun Belt Conference. The Hilltoppers' football program was without any league affiliation from 1982 until 1998.

The team rejoined the OVC in 1999 and the school became the league's only associate member, meaning not all of its teams were affiliated with the OVC. The Hilltoppers are among eight football teams in the conference.

During its annual meeting in Cookeville, Tenn., the OVC Board of Presidents voted unanimously on June 1 to do away with associate membership.

The board decided that it looks bad for the league when not all of a member school's sports teams are affiliated. Dan Beebe, OVC commissioner, said the board found it particularly unacceptable from "an institution right smack in the middle of our geographic location."

"The OVC is a long-standing conference, the eighth-oldest conference in the country," Beebe said. "These conference were formed to be full-membership conferences."

The league invited Western to apply for full membership but the school declined, Western president Gary Ransdell said.