Bill Hayes could hardly contain his excitement. 

"Great!" the N.C. Central athletics director said Wednesday morning after the university's Board of Trustees gave unanimous approval for a move to NCAA Division I. 

"I'm overwhelmed, I really am. I'm so excited!" 

Hayes will be directing the move as the Eagles go from competing in Division II and the CIAA to Division I and the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. 

Wednesday's vote was the culmination of a three-year process of study to move the Eagles to the highest division of collegiate competition in every sport except football, where they will compete in Division I-AA, the second highest level, which includes all of the larger historically black colleges. 

Pending near-certain acceptance of the application by the NCAA, the 2006-07 academic year will be NCCU's last as a Division II school. That begins a transition period that concludes with the Eagles being full Division I members and eligible to compete in Division I NCAA championship tournaments for the first time in 2010-11. 

Assistant athletics director Ingrid Wicker-McCree, who was on her way to Lock Haven, Pa., to coach the NCCU volleyball team in the first round of the Division II playoffs, said the application to join the MEAC will be made during the 2006-07 academic year. 

"I really do feel good about this," said Wicker-McCree, who handled much of the athletics department's paperwork for the study. "I'm glad it's over -- this part of it, anyway. 

"Now we can go recruiting to volleyball against a full Division I schedule in 2007-08." 

That's going to be the focus for all of NCCU's coaches, plus the new baseball coach Hayes plans to hire early next year in preparation for competition in 2006-07. To be a Division I member, NCCU is required to add one men's sport, which will be a baseball team that is expected to be the primary tenant at a remodeled historic Durham Athletic Park. 

Hayes said that the Eagles also would be planning to add women's golf. 

The changes are going to be most apparent in football and basketball, where the Eagles will be playing against the top Historically Black Colleges and Universities programs as well as other high-profile area and national opponents. 

"By reclassifying, it will give NCCU the opportunity to showcase our student-athletes and the entire university," said football coach Rod Broadway, whose team is preparing to host North Alabama on Saturday in the Eagles' first NCAA football playoff game in 17 years. "We're looking forward to the challenge." 

In basketball, games such as the men's exhibition contests this season at Duke and East Carolina and the women's exhibition at UNC Greensboro will begin to appear on the regular-season schedule. 

"It's a good move," said men's basketball coach Henry Dickerson, whose team opens its season against Eckerd on Friday in Boca Raton, Fla. "The move will take patience, but it's going to bring us a higher level of competition and more exposure and TV revenues. 

"I think we're close to competing at the level of the MEAC and the Southern Conference at the Big South, and I was in the Southern Conference forever [as head coach at Chattanooga]." 

Dickerson said the Eagles might schedule as many as five games against Division I opponents two years from now. 

Women's basketball coach Joli Robinson, whose team opens its season Friday in Winston-Salem against Georgia College & State University, said her team should be ready for MEAC play as well. 

"We used to play [N.C.] A&T every year and beat them," Robinson said. "We'll probably schedule a few Division I teams next year. 

"When we can tell the athletes we're going to be Division I, it's definitely going to improve our recruiting." 

Track and cross country coach Mike Lawson, who has had numerous NCAA Division II individual champions and has gotten a men's or women's CIAA team title each of the last two years, also is enthusiastic about the recruiting prospects. 

"We'll be able to grow the program," Lawson said. "I can't tell you how many recruits I've lost over the years who said, 'I want to go D-I.' "