West Coast Conference
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The West Coast Conference is an NCAA collegiate athletic conference consisting of eight member schools in California, Oregon, and Washington. It was founded in 1952 by a group of five schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. All of the current members are private, religiously-affiliated institutions; four of the eight are Jesuit, and only Pepperdine is not Catholic. It is also a remarkably stable union in the constantly changing world of college athletics. The WCC has not had a school join or leave the conference since 1980. Only two conferences, the Ivy League and the Pac-10, have remained unchanged for a longer period of time.
The WCC participates in NCAA Division I. The conference sponsors 13 sports but does not include football as one of them. In fact, San Diego is the only conference member that still plays football at any level--the rest have either dropped the sport or never sponsored it in the first place. The WCC's strongest sports historically have been soccer (seven national champions, including back-to-back women's soccer titles in 2001 and 2002) and tennis (five individual champions and one team champion). The conference has also made its presence felt nationally in men's basketball, with San Francisco winning two consecutive national titles in the 1950s with all-time great Bill Russell, Loyola Marymount's inspired NCAA tournament run in 1990 following the tragic death of Hank Gathers during that season's WCC championship tournament, and most recently Gonzaga's rise to national prominence since the late 1990s.
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Current members (and year joined)
- Gonzaga University (1979)
- Loyola Marymount University (1955)
- Pepperdine University (1955)
- University of Portland (1976)
- St. Mary's College (California) (1952)
- University of San Diego (1979)
- University of San Francisco (1952)
- Santa Clara University (1952)
Former members
- University of the Pacific (1952-1971)
- San Jose State University (1952-1969)
- California State University, Fresno (=Fresno State) (1955-1957)
- University of California, Santa Barbara (=UCSB) (1964-1969)
- University of Nevada (1969-1979)
- University of Nevada, Las Vegas (=UNLV) (1969-1975)
- Seattle University (1971-1980)
Sports
The WCC sponsors intercollegiate competition in men’s baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s golf, men's and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s tennis, women's rowing, and women’s volleyball.
Famous athletes
Some of the famous athletes who played collegiately in the WCC include NBA legends Bill Russell and John Stockton; current NBA star Steve Nash; Brandi Chastain, Shannon MacMillan and Tiffeny Milbrett of the 1999 USA Women's World Cup champions; USA men's soccer team goalkeeper Kasey Keller; former major league pitchers Mike Scott and Tom Candiotti; and current major league outfielder Jason Bay.
External links
- West Coast Conference official website (http://wccsports.collegesports.com/)