Hood will join the Capital Athletic Conference next academic year, making it the first year that the school's men's teams will compete in conference play.

Hood teams will compete in seven of the CAC's men's sports and one women's sport in the 2006-2007 season against Goucher, Salisbury, The Catholic, Gallaudet, Mary Washington, Marymount, St. Mary's (Md.), and York (Pa.). Men will compete in basketball, soccer, lacrosse, swimming, cross country, tennis and golf, and the women will compete in cross country.

Villa Julie in Stevenson, Md., previously announced it was joining the conference. Goucher and Catholic will be joining a newly formed, yet-to-be-named conference that will begin competition in 2007, the so-called Interstate Eight. Both will remain members of the CAC in the 2006-2007 year.

Hood's other eight women's sports teams are committed to playing until the end of the 2006-2007 season in the Atlantic Women's Colleges Conference, which includes the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, Mary Baldwin, Chestnut Hill, Wells, Trinity, Wilson and Chatham colleges. Hood, a women's residential college until it became fully coeducational in 2003, has been a member of the eight-member AWCC since its inception in 1995.

Hood will benefit from membership in the conference at several levels, according to Hood's athletic director, Gib Romaine, including the opportunity to play for conference, NCAA and individual honors.

"The CAC is an established, well-respected conference that has produced national champions," Romaine said. "Our teams will have the opportunity to play in a very competitive conference with schools that are similar to us academically, athletically and within our geographic region."

CAC Commissioner Dick Cook said Hood was a good fit for the conference. "We're delighted that Hood has accepted our offer to join the conference," Cook said. "Hood was ideally located, with a well-respected and recognized program that is growing."

The conference was formed in 1989 with six schools. Goucher was accepted for membership in 1991 and Salisbury entered in 1993.