The Western Athletic Conference is an American college athletics conference established on 27 July 1962 and affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. The WAC covers a vast expanse of the western United States, with member institutions located in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, and Washington, along with "non-western" states of Missouri and Illinois (traditionally associated with the Midwest), as well Texas (traditionally associated with Southwest).
Since most of the football members who played at the conference left WAC for other affiliates, the conference stopped football as a sponsored sport after the 2012-13 season and left the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly known as the I-A Division). WAC then became the first Division I conference that dropped football since the Big West in 2000. WAC later added men's football and became one of 11 NCAA Division's non-football conferences.
Video Western Athletic Conference
Members
Current members
The following institutions are full members of the WAC for the academic year 2016-17.
- Notes
- With the removal of football as a WAC sponsored sport, the New Mexico State football program has joined Sun Belt as an associate member.
- In July 2015, UTPA joined the University of Texas at Brownsville to create a new University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). The University of Texas system stated in July 2014 that "the UTPA athletic program will be transformed into an athletic program at UTRGV." On November 5, 2014, a new nickname of UTRGV Vaqueros was announced.
- The date of incorporation for UTRGV listed in this table reflects that of Edinburg College, the institution that eventually became UTPA.
- The continued membership of Chicago State is problematic. Taking into account the current tense financial situation of schools and the need for athletic programs, in April 2016, the University Budget Committee recommended that the Department of Athletics "... learn the benefits of being Division I or other divisions."
- The total championship title is until Spring 2016.
- California State University, Bakersfield will leave for the Big West Conference in 2020.
Future members
Affiliate members
Here are 10 WAC field school programs for sports that are not sponsored by their major conferences.
- Notes
- Four schools become affiliated members in men's soccer in July 2013; WAC announced on January 9, 2013 that it will restore the sport, which it has sponsored from 1996 to 1999. Because the conference dropped football, it is necessary to add new male sports teams to maintain their Division I status. He chose men's soccer because the three confirmed members for 2013-14 (CSU Bakersfield, Grand Canyon, and Seattle) have sponsored the sport, and filled the football rank by attracting four schools from the Pacific Mountain Sports Federation. Three of these schools have past WAC connections - former full members of the Air Force, UNLV and San Jose State. After WAC announced it would add men's football, the conference earned its eighth soccer school for the 2013 season when UMKC, which has sponsored the sport, joined. Additionally, Utah Valley adds sport for 2014, UT-Pan American (now known as UT Rio Grande Valley) added it for 2015, and Chicago State is scheduled to add it for 2016.
- Four schools (three of whom are former WAC full members: Air Force, UNLV and Wyoming and North Dakota) became affiliates in men swimming and diving in July 2013; WAC announced on May 16, 2013 that it will restore the sport, which it has sponsored from 1962 to 2000.
- Northern Colorado joins WAC for baseball for 2014 (academic year 2013-14).
- Sacramento State was previously a member of the WAC association in baseball from 1992-93 to 1995-96.
- The total championship title is until Autumn 2014.
Former full member
WAC has 27 full members.
Former affiliate member
Timeline membership
Full members Non-football members Other conferences Other conferences Partner Members
- Before the 1996-97 season, both the Air Force and Hawaii had almost all of their women's sports competing at other conferences before joining the full-time WAC with their male comrades. At that time, the Air Force was at the Colorado Athletic Conference, and Hawaii was in the Big West Conference.
Maps Western Athletic Conference
History
Formation
WAC was formed from a series of talks between the Brigham Young University's athletic director Eddie Kimball and other university administrators from 1958 to 1961 to form a new athletic conference that would better suit the particular university's needs and situation at that time members of the Border, Skyline and Coastal Conference Pacific. Potential members of the universities represented at meetings include BYU, State of Washington, Oregon, State of Oregon, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Arizona State, and Wyoming. While three Washington and Oregon schools chose to stay at the altered Pac-8 Conference that replaced the scandal-stricken PCC, the remaining six schools formed the WAC. The Border and Skyline conferences, each losing their three powerful members, were disbanded at the end of the 1961-62 season. Members of the WAC charter are Arizona, Arizona State, BYU, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. The State of New Mexico and the State of Utah filed an application for charter membership and rejected; they will eventually become members of the WAC 43 years later.
First success and expansion
This conference proved very suitable for six schools both from a competitive and financial perspective. Arizona and Arizona State, in particular, experienced success in baseball with Arizona collecting the 1963 World Cup World Series (CWS) runners-up and ASU winning 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 the massive growth in the state of Arizona, the balance of WAC play in the 1970s became increasingly skewed in favor of Arizona schools, which won or tied for all but two WAC football titles from 1969 onwards. In the summer of 1978, two schools left WAC for Pac-8, which became Pac-10, and were replaced at WAC by San Diego State and, one year later, Hawaii. WAC grew by adding the Air Force in the summer of 1980. A national college football championship won by Brigham Young in 1984 added to WAC's reputation as one of the best NCAA Division conferences. This nine-line team from WAC defines the conference for nearly 15 years.
Second expansion wave
Fresno State expanded its athletic program in the early 1990s and was granted membership in 1992 as a national trend against an independent college program of accelerated conferences. WAC joined the State High Athletic Conference, a parallel organization with WAC for women's athletics, in 1990 to unite male and female athletics under an administrative structure.
In 1996, WAC expanded again, adding six schools to its rank for a total of sixteen. Rice, TCU, and SMU joined the league from the Southwest Conference, which had disbanded. Members of the Big West Conference San Jose State and UNLV are also welcome, as well as Tulsa from the Missouri Valley Conference. Also, two WAC members for men's sports at the time, Air Force and Hawaiian ? i, take their women's sport to WAC. With expansion, WAC is divided into two divisions, Mountain and Pacific.
To help organize schedules and travel for a very broad league, the members are divided into four quadrants of four teams each, as follows:
Quadrants have always been part of the Pacific Division, and the four quadrants have always been part of the Mountain Division. The two quadrants were part of the Pacific Division for 1996 and 1997 before switching to the Mountain Division in 1998, while the reverse goes for the three quadrants. The fourth year scheduled for alignment was abandoned after eight schools left to form the Western Mountain Conference.
The division champions in soccer met from 1996 to 1998 in the WAC Championship Game, held at Sam Boyd Stadium (also known as the Silver Bowl) in the Las Vegas Valley.
Turbulence at the turn of the millennium
Increasingly, most of the pre-1996 members, especially the Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, Utah, and Wyoming - were disappointed with this new arrangement. Additional attention is focused on finances, because the expanded league extends from Hawaii ? i to Oklahoma and now includes four time zones in nine states. With such a vast league, travel costs are a concern. Air Force presidents, BYU, Colorado State, Utah, and Wyoming met in 1998 at Denver International Airport and agreed to split up to form a new league. The breakaway group invited old-time WAC schools of New Mexico and San Diego State and UNLV newcomers to join them in the new West Mountain Conference, which started the competition in 1999.
The article USA Today summarizes the reasons behind the split. "With Hawaii and the Texas schools separated by about 3,900 miles and four time zones, travel costs are a tremendous burden for the WAC team.The cost, coupled with lagging revenue and a rearrangement proposal that will separate rivals such as Colorado State and Air Force , creating riots among eight defected schools. "
BYU and Utah will then leave the MWC for the West Coast Conference and Pac-12 Conference, respectively; BYU football is an independent FBS.
WAC in the 2000s
In 2000, the University of Nevada, Reno (Nevada) of Big West joined as part of his plans to improve his athletic program.
TCU left for the USA Conference in 2001 (later to leave C-USA to become the ninth member of West Mountain in 2005, and join the Big 12 in 2012).
Big West announced that they would leave football after the 2000 season, but four of its football members (Boise State, Idaho, New Mexico State and Utah State) did not want to drop football. Boise State was invited to join the WAC and soon left 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 the Utah State was operated as an independent D. Program -IA. At the same time, Louisiana Tech (LA Tech) ended its independent D-IA status and also accepted an invitation to join WAC with Boise State.
In 2005, the USA Conference searched for new members to fill in its ranks after losing members to the Big East, who had lost members to the ACC. Four WAC schools, former SWC Schools of Rice and SMU, as well as Tulsa and UTEP, joined the USA Conference. In response, WAC added Idaho, New Mexico State, and Utah State - all former Big West schools who left the conference in 2000 along with Boise State when the conference dropped football. All three new schools are all university grant land, bringing the total conference to five (Nevada and Hawaiian ? i).
Membership changes and football removal
The 2010 decade begins with a series of conference restructuring movements that will have a trickle-down effect throughout the football division I, and greatly change the WAC membership. Boise State decided to move to Mountain West Conference (MW) for the 2011-12 season, and to replace departing BYU, MW also recruited WAC Fresno State and Nevada members for 2012-13. WAC commissioner Karl Benson is eyeing several schools to replace those who went, including the University of Montana, who refused, as well as the University of Denver, the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), and Texas State University-San Marcos, all of which were effectively received 2012-13.
But the eastward shift to the geographic center of the conference led to Hawaii ? i to reduce travel costs by becoming a football-only MW member and join the California-based Big West Conference for all other sports. Further invitations were then issued by WAC to Seattle University and the University of Texas at Arlington. This change means that the conference will have 10 members for 2012-13, seven of them sponsored football, and Benson announces that WAC plans to add two additional football members to start the competition in 2013. Further encouragement comes when Boise State decides to join with Big East in football, and back to WAC in most other sports, in the academic year 2013-14. So by the end of 2011, WAC appears to have passed the latest round of conference changes, and once again rediscovered itself for the future.
But from this seemingly powerful position, early 2012 spawned a series of steps that shook the conference to its core, starting with the State of Utah and the State of San Jose accepting an offer to join MW. Four similar announcements followed by UTSA and Louisiana Tech jumped into the USA Conference, plus Texas State and UT Arlington headed for the Sun Belt Conference, all in 2013-14. Boise State also canceled plans to rejoin WAC, instead choosing to place non-soccer sports in the Big West Conference, before finally deciding to stay at MW. This change left the WAC's survival as a Division I soccer conference in great doubt. The remaining two soccer members, New Mexico State and Idaho, are beginning to make plans to compete in the upcoming season as FBS Independents; they ended up just spending the 2013 season as independent, rejoining their one-time soccer home from Sun Belt as a ball-only member in 2014.
To rebuild, as well as to prevent further defection, the conference was forced to add two schools - Utah Valley University and CSU Bakersfield - who were invited in October 2012 to join the WAC in 2013-14, but this did not prevent two more members away. Denver decided to take most of its athletic teams to The Summit League in the 2013-14 season, shortly after Idaho chose to return all of his non-football sport to the Big Sky Conference in 2014-15. 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, WAC announced the University of Missouri-Kansas City will join in the summer of 2013 as well. This change will place conference membership in eight members by 2014 with only one, New Mexico State, which has been in the WAC just three years before. Due to the loss of a majority of football members, WAC will stop sponsoring the sport after the 2012-13 season, thus becoming a non-soccer conference.
While the WAC has not changed in its core membership since Idaho's departure, one member school has changed its identity. In 2013, the University of Texas System announces that Texas-Pan American will join the University of Texas at Brownsville; the new institution, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), began operating for the school year 2015-16. UTRGV inherited the UTPA athletic program and WAC membership.
In January 2017, WAC announced that California Baptist University will transition from the NCAA Division II and join the conference in 2018.
Commissioner
Sports
The Western Athletic Conference currently sponsors a championship competition in nine NCAA sports that consists of nine men and ten women. Nine schools today are Associate members in four sports.
- Male soccer is a newly sponsored sport for 2013-14; UTRGV added it for 2015, and the Chicago State is also to add it.
School-sponsored sports
Sports male universities not sponsored by Western Athletic Conference played by WAC schools
Women's sponsorship by school
Women's sponsored sports Women's university sports are not sponsored by the Western Athletic Conference played by WAC schools
Football
WAC sponsored football from its founding in 1962 to the 2012 season. However, all defections except two football schools to another conference led to a conference to drop the sponsor after fifty-one years.
Men's basket
turnamen WAC
Rivalry
The male basketball competition involving the WAC team includes:
Penghargaan
Basket wanita
turnamen WAC
Rivalry
Women's basketball competition involving WAC teams includes:
Baseball
WAC has claimed seven NCAA baseball national championships. The newest WAC national champion is the 2008 Fresno State Bulldogs baseball team.
WAC tournament
Championship
Current winner
Source:
- For sports where WAC recognizes both the regular and postseason champions:
- (RS) shows regular season champions.
- (P) shows the postseason champion.
- For other sports, only recognizable postseason champions.
National championship
The following teams have won the NCAA national championship as WAC members:
- Arizona - baseball (1976)
- Arizona State - baseball (1965, 1967, 1969, 1977)
- BYU - track & amp; field man (sharing the national title in 1970)
- BYU - male golf (1981)
- BYU - cross country women (1997)
- Fresno State - softball (1998)
- Fresno State - baseball (2008)
- Rice - baseball (2003)
- UTEP - NCAA Division I Men's Cross Country (1969, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1981)
- UTEP - Indoor and Field Fields NCAA Division I (1974, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, 198)
- UTEP - Division I NCAA Field and Space Division (1975, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982)
- UNLV - male golf (1998)
WAC has also produced one national champion AP in football:
- BYU (1984)
The following teams won the AIAW national championships (and DGWS predecessors) while their university is a member of WAC: Arizona State (15) - swimming (8), badminton (4), softball (2), golf (1)
Facilities
Depart the Cal State Bakersfield member in pink; a member of the California Baptist future in gray.
- Note: KeyArena is configured for 8951 capacity for the Seattle game. Seattle U also played some home games at Connolly Center (capacity 999) during the season as well.
Awards
Cup Commissioner
WAC gave the Komisar Cup to the school performing the best in each of the 19 men's and women's championships at the conference.
Penghargaan Joe Kearney
Named to honor former WAC commissioner Dr. Joseph Kearney, awards are awarded annually to top WAC men and women athletes. Members of various WAC Athletics Board of Directors select male award winners, while WAC Women's Senior Women's Institution members choose honorary women.
Stan Bates Award
The award is named in honor of former WAC commissioner Stan Bates and honors athletes of the WAC men's and women's academy, who recognize athletic and academic achievement of the recipients. In addition, the award brings a $ 3,000 graduate scholarship.
Media
WAC Digital Network
In 2014-15, WAC started a new digital network to provide fans with high quality streaming internet access to many regular season games and postseason championships including volleyball, soccer, swimming and diving, basketball, softball and baseball.
References
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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