The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is an American collegiate athletic conference formed on July 27, 1962 and affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. The WAC covers a broad expanse of the western United States, with member institutions located in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, and Washington, along with the "non-western" states of Missouri and Illinois (traditionally associated with the Midwest), as well as Texas (traditionally associated with the Southwest).
Due to most of the conference's football-playing members leaving the WAC for other affiliations, the conference discontinued football as a sponsored sport after the 2012â€"13 season and left the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-A). The WAC thus became the first Division I conference to drop football since the Big West in 2000. The WAC then added men's soccer and became one of the NCAA's eleven Division I non-football conferences.
Member schools
Current members
The following institutions are the full members of the WAC for the 2016â€"17 academic year.
- Notes
- With the elimination of football as a WAC-sponsored sport, New Mexico State's football program has joined the Sun Belt as an associate member.
- In July 2015, UTPA merged with the University of Texas at Brownsville to create the new University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). The University of Texas System stated in July 2014 that "the UTPA athletics program will be converted into the athletics program at UTRGV." On November 5, 2014, UTRGV's new nickname of Vaqueros was announced.
- The founding date for UTRGV listed in this table reflects that of Edinburg College, the institution that eventually became UTPA.
- Chicago State's continued membership is problematic. Considering the school's current strained financial situation and the needs of the athletic program, in April 2016, the University Budget Committee recommended that the Athletic Department "... study the benefits of being Division I or another division."
- Championships title totals are through Spring 2016.
Future member
Affiliate members
The following 10 schools field programs in the WAC for sports not sponsored by their primary conferences.
- Notes
- Four schools became affiliate members in men's soccer in July 2013; the WAC announced on January 9, 2013 that it would reinstate the sport, which it had sponsored from 1996 to 1999. Because the conference dropped football, it was necessary to add a new men's team sport to maintain its Division I status. It chose men's soccer because three of the confirmed members for 2013â€"14 (CSU Bakersfield, Grand Canyon, and Seattle) already sponsored the sport, and filled out its soccer ranks by attracting four schools from the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. Three of these schools have past WAC connectionsâ€"former full members Air Force, UNLV and San Jose State. After the WAC announced it would add men's soccer, the conference gained an eighth soccer school for the 2013 season when UMKC, which already sponsored the sport, joined. In addition, Utah Valley added the sport for 2014, UT-Pan American (now known as UT Rio Grande Valley) added it for 2015, and Chicago State is slated to add it for 2016.
- Four schools (three of which are former WAC full members: Air Force, UNLV and Wyoming; and North Dakota) became affiliate members in men's swimming and diving in July 2013; the WAC announced on May 16, 2013 that it would reinstate the sport, which it had sponsored from 1962 to 2000.
- Northern Colorado joined the WAC for baseball for the 2014 season (2013â€"14 academic year).
- Sacramento State was formerly an associate member of the WAC in baseball from 1992â€"93 to 1995â€"96.
- Championships title totals are through Fall 2014.
Former full members
The WAC has 27 former full members.
Former affiliate members
Membership timeline
Full members Full members (non-football) Other conference Other conference Associate Member
- Prior to the 1996â€"97 season, both Air Force and Hawaii had most to all of their women's sports competing in other conferences before joining the WAC full-time with their men's sports counterparts. At that time, Air Force was in the Colorado Athletic Conference, and Hawaii was in the Big West Conference.
History
Formation
The WAC formed out of a series of talks between Brigham Young University athletic director Eddie Kimball and other university administrators from 1958 to 1961 to form a new athletic conference that would better fit the needs and situations of certain universities which were at the time members of the Border, Skyline, and Pacific Coast Conferences. Potential member universities who were represented at the meetings included BYU, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Arizona State, and Wyoming. While the three Washington and Oregon schools elected to stay in a revamped Pac-8 Conference that replaced the scandal-plagued PCC, the remaining six schools formed the WAC. The Border and Skyline conferences, having each lost three of their stronger members, dissolved at the end of the 1961â€"62 season. The charter members of the WAC were Arizona, Arizona State, BYU, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. New Mexico State and Utah State applied for charter membership and were turned down; they would eventually become WAC members 43 years later.
Success and first expansion
The conference proved to be an almost perfect fit for the six schools from both a competitive and financial standpoint. Arizona and Arizona State, in particular, experienced success in baseball with Arizona garnering the 1963 College World Series (CWS) runner-up trophy and ASU winning the CWS in 1965, 1967, and 1969. Colorado State and Texas-El Paso (UTEP), at that time just renamed from Texas Western College, joined in 1967 to bring membership up to eight.
With massive growth in the state of Arizona, the balance of WAC play in the 1970s became increasingly skewed in favor of the Arizona schools, who won or tied for all but two WAC football titles from 1969 onward. In the summer of 1978, the two schools left the WAC for the Pac-8, which became the Pac-10, and were replaced in the WAC by San Diego State and, one year later, Hawaii. The WAC further expanded by adding Air Force in the summer of 1980. A college football national championship won by Brigham Young in 1984 added to the WAC's reputation as one of the best NCAA Division I conferences. This nine-team line-up of the WAC defined the conference for nearly 15 years.
Second wave of expansion and turbulence
Fresno State expanded its athletic program in the early 1990s and was granted membership in 1992 as the nationwide trend against major college programs independent of conferences accelerated. The WAC merged with the High Country Athletic Conference, a parallel organization to the WAC for women's athletics, in 1990 to unify both men's and women's athletics under one administrative structure.
In 1996, the WAC expanded again, adding six schools to its ranks for a total of sixteen. Rice, TCU, and SMU joined the league from the Southwest Conference, which had disbanded. Big West Conference members San Jose State and UNLV were also admitted, as well as Tulsa from the Missouri Valley Conference. Also, two WAC members for men's sports at the time, Air Force and Hawaiʻi, brought their women's sports into the WAC. With the expansion, the WAC was divided into two divisions, the Mountain and the Pacific.
To help in organizing schedules and travel for the farflung league, the members were divided into four quadrants of four teams each, as follows:
Quadrant one was always part of the Pacific Division, and quadrant four was always part of the Mountain Division. Quadrant two was part of the Pacific Division for 1996 and 1997 before switching to the Mountain Division in 1998, while the reverse was true for quadrant three. The scheduled fourth year of the alignment was abandoned after eight schools left to form the Mountain West Conference.
The division champions in football met from 1996 to 1998 in a championship game at Sam Boyd Stadium (also known as the Silver Bowl) in Henderson, Nevada.
Increasingly, most of the older, pre-1996 membersâ€"particularly Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, Utah, and Wyomingâ€"felt chagrin at this new arrangement. Additional concerns centered around finances, as the expanded league stretched from HawaiÊ»i to Oklahoma and now included four time zones in nine states. With such a far-flung league, travel costs became a concern. The presidents of Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, Utah, and Wyoming met in 1998 at Denver International Airport and agreed to split off to form a new league. The breakaway group invited old-line WAC schools New Mexico and San Diego State and newcomer UNLV to join them in the new Mountain West Conference, which began competition in 1999. (BYU and Utah have since left for the West Coast Conference and Pac-12 Conference, respectively; BYU football is an FBS independent.)
A USA Today article summed up the reasons behind the split. "With Hawaii and the Texas schools separated by about 3,900 miles and four time zones, travel costs were a tremendous burden for WAC teams. The costs, coupled with lagging revenue and a proposed realignment that would have separated rivals such as Colorado State and Air Force, created unrest among the eight defecting schools."
WAC in the 2000s
In 2000, the University of Nevada, Reno (Nevada) of the Big West joined as part of its plan to upgrade its athletic program.
TCU left for Conference USA in 2001 (it would later leave C-USA to become the ninth member of the Mountain West in 2005, and joined the Big 12 in 2012).
The Big West announced that it would drop football after the 2000 season, but four of its football-playing members (Boise State, Idaho, New Mexico State, and Utah State) were unwilling to drop football. Boise State was invited to join the WAC and promptly departed the Big West, while New Mexico State and Idaho joined the Sun Belt Conference (NMSU as a full member, Idaho as a "football only" member) and Utah State operated as an independent D-IA program. At the same time, Louisiana Tech (LA Tech) ended its independent D-IA status and also accepted an invitation to join the WAC with Boise State.
In 2005, Conference USA sought new members to replenish its ranks after losing members to the Big East, which had lost members to the ACC. Four WAC schools, former SWC schools Rice and SMU, as well as Tulsa and UTEP, joined Conference USA. In response, the WAC added Idaho, New Mexico State, and Utah State â€" all former Big West schools which left the conference in 2000 along with Boise State when that conference dropped football. The three new schools were all land grant universities, bringing the conference total to five (Nevada and HawaiÊ»i).
Membership changes and the elimination of football
The decade of the 2010s began with a series of conference realignment moves that would have trickle-down effects throughout Division I football, and profoundly change the membership of the WAC. Boise State decided to move to the Mountain West Conference (MW) for the 2011â€"12 season, and to replace departing BYU, the MW also recruited WAC members Fresno State and Nevada for 2012â€"13. WAC commissioner Karl Benson courted several schools to replace those leaving, including the University of Montana, which declined, as well as the University of Denver, University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), and Texas State University-San Marcos, which all accepted effective 2012â€"13.
But the resulting eastward shift of the conference's geographic center led HawaiÊ»i to reduce travel expenses by becoming a football-only member of the MW and joining the California-based Big West Conference for all other sports. Further invitations were then issued by the WAC to Seattle University and the University of Texas at Arlington. These changes meant that the conference would have 10 members for 2012â€"13, seven of which sponsored football, and Benson announced that the WAC planned to add two additional football-playing members to begin competition in 2013. A further boost came when Boise State decided to join the Big East in football, and return to the WAC in most other sports, as of the 2013â€"14 academic year. So by the end of 2011, the WAC seemed to have weathered the latest round of conference changes, and once again reinvented itself for the future.
But from this seemingly strong position, early 2012 brought forth a series of moves that shook the conference to its very core, beginning with Utah State and San Jose State accepting offers to join the MW. Four similar announcements followed with UTSA and Louisiana Tech jumping to Conference USA, plus Texas State and UT Arlington heading to the Sun Belt Conference, all as of 2013â€"14. Boise State also canceled plans to rejoin the WAC, instead opting to place its non-football sports in the Big West Conference, before eventually deciding to simply remain in the MW. These changes left the WAC's viability as a Division I football conference in grave doubt. The two remaining football-playing members, New Mexico State and Idaho, began making plans to compete in future seasons as FBS Independents; they ultimately spent only the 2013 season as independents, rejoining their one-time football home of the Sun Belt as football-only members in 2014.
In order to rebuild, as well as forestall further defections, the conference was forced to add two schoolsâ€"Utah Valley University and CSU Bakersfieldâ€"which were invited in October 2012 to join the WAC in 2013â€"14, but this did not prevent two more members from leaving. Denver decided to take most of its athletic teams to The Summit League as of the 2013â€"14 season, shortly after Idaho opted to return all of its non-football sports to the Big Sky Conference in 2014â€"15. The conference responded over the next two months by adding Grand Canyon University, Chicago State University, and the University of Texas-Pan American. Then, in February 2013, the WAC announced the University of Missouriâ€"Kansas City would join in the summer of 2013 as well. These changes would put the conference's membership at eight members by 2014 with only one, New Mexico State, having been in the WAC just three years earlier. Due to losing the majority of its football-playing members, the WAC would stop sponsoring the sport after the 2012â€"13 season, thereby becoming a non-football conference.
While the WAC has had no changes in its core membership since the departure of Idaho, one member school has changed its identity. In 2013, the University of Texas System announced that Texasâ€"Pan American would merge with the University of Texas at Brownsville; the new institution, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), began operation for the 2015â€"16 school year. UTRGV inherited UTPA's athletic program and WAC membership.
In January 2017, the WAC announced that California Baptist University would transition from NCAA Division II and join the conference in 2018.
Commissioners
Sports
The Western Athletic Conference currently sponsors championship competition in nine men's and ten women's NCAA sanctioned sports. Nine schools are currently Associate members in four sports.
- Men's soccer was a newly sponsored sport for 2013â€"14; UTRGV will add it for 2015, and Chicago State is also to add it.
- In softball, the WAC has six softball members; however, because softball-sponsoring Grand Canyon is reclassifying from Division II to Division I, it is not eligible for the conference tournament.
Men's sponsored sports by school
Men's varsity sports not sponsored by the Western Athletic Conference which are played by WAC schools
Women's sponsored sports by school
Women's varsity sports not sponsored by the Western Athletic Conference which are played by WAC schools
Football
The WAC sponsored football from its founding in 1962 through the 2012 season. However, the defection of all but two football-playing schools to other conferences caused the conference to drop sponsorship after fifty-one years.
Men's basketball
WAC tournament
Rivalries
Men's basketball rivalries involving WAC teams include:
Awards
Women's basketball
WAC tournament
Rivalries
Women's basketball rivalries involving WAC teams include:
Baseball
The WAC has claimed seven NCAA baseball national championships. The most recent WAC national champion is the 2008 Fresno State Bulldogs baseball team.
WAC tournament
Championships
Current champions
Source:
- For the sports in which the WAC recognizes both a regular-season and a postseason champion:
- (RS) indicates regular-season champion.
- (P) indicates postseason champion.
- For other sports, only a postseason champion is recognized.
National championships
The following teams have won NCAA national championships while being a member of the WAC:
- Arizona â€" baseball (1976)
- Arizona State â€" baseball (1965, 1967, 1969, 1977)
- BYU â€" men's track & field (shared the national title in 1970)
- BYU â€" men's golf (1981)
- BYU â€" women's cross country (1997)
- Fresno State â€" softball (1998)
- Fresno State â€" baseball (2008)
- Rice â€" baseball (2003)
- UTEP â€" NCAA Division I Men's Cross Country (1969, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1981)
- UTEP â€" NCAA Division I Men's Indoor Track and Field (1974,1975,1976,1978,1980,1981,1982)
- UTEP â€" NCAA Division I Men's Outdoor Track and Field (1975, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982)
- UNLV â€" men's golf (1998)
The WAC has also produced one AP national champion in football:
- BYU (1984)
The following teams won AIAW (and forerunner DGWS) women's national championships while their universities were members of the WAC:
- Arizona State (15) â€" swimming (8), badminton (4), softball (2), golf (1)
- Utah (3) â€" cross country (Div. II), gymnastics, skiing
- UTEP (1) â€" indoor track and field
Facilities
Future member California Baptist in gray.
- Note: KeyArena is configured for 8,901 capacity for Seattle games. Seattle U also plays multiple home games at the Connolly Center (capacity 999) during the season as well.
Awards
Commissioner's Cup
The WAC awards its Commissioner's Cup to the school that performs the best in each of the conference's 19 men's and women's championships.
Joe Kearney Award
Named in honor of former WAC commissioner Dr. Joseph Kearney, the awards are given annually to the top male and female WAC athlete. The various WAC member institutions Athletics Directors select the male award winner, while the WAC member instituitions Senior Women's Administrators choose the female honoree.
Stan Bates Award
The award is named in honor of former WAC Commissioner Stan Bates and honors the WAC's top male and female scholar-athletes, recognizing the recipients’ athletic and academic accomplishments. In addition, the awards carry a $3,000 postgraduate scholarship.
Media
WAC Digital Network
In 2014â€"15, the WAC initiated a new digital network to give fans high quality streaming internet access to many of its regular season games and postseason championships including volleyball, soccer, swimming and diving, basketball, softball and baseball.
References
External links
- Official website