West Coast Conference

The West Coast Conference is made up of eight private institutions in California, Oregon and Washington which compete at the NCAA Division 1 level in 13 different sports. The league got its start in 1952 as a convenient way for five Bay Area institutions to play basketball. Those five schools -- the University of San Francisco, Santa Clara University, Saint Mary's College, San Jose State University and the University of the Pacific -- expanded the membership in 1955 to include Pepperdine University and Loyola Marymount University in Southern California. At that time, the league changed its name from "California Basketball Association" to the "West Coast Athletic Conference." The current alignment, which also includes Gonzaga University, the University of Portland and the University of San Diego, has remained unchanged since 1978. Only two other conferences (the Pacific-10 and the Ivy League) have stayed together longer. The WCC, which changed its name to the current "West Coast Conference" in 1990, sponsors six championships for men in baseball, basketball, cross country, golf, soccer and tennis and seven for women in basketball, cross country, golf, rowing, soccer, tennis and volleyball.