NCAA Sports Blog

The Western Athletic Conference (commonly referred to as the WAC, pronounced “wack”) was formed on July 27, 1962, making it the sixth oldest of the 11 college athletic conferences currently participating in the NCAA’s Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Division I-A). The WAC covers a broad expanse of the Western United States, with member institutions located in California, Hawaiʻi, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.

The WAC formed out of a series of talks between Brigham Young University President Edwin 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 then competing in the Border, Skyline and Pacific Coast Conferences. Potential member universities who were represented at the meetings included Brigham Young, 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, forcing the disbandment of the Border and Skyline conferences. New Mexico State and Utah State applied for charter membership and were turned down; they would eventually become WAC members 43 years later.

Charter members

    * University of Arizona (withdrew June 30, 1978 to join the Pacific 10 Conference)

    * Arizona State University (withdrew June 30, 1978 to join the Pacific 10 Conference)

    * Brigham Young University (withdrew June 30, 1999 to form the Mountain West Conference)

    * University of New Mexico (withdrew June 30, 1999 to form the Mountain West Conference)

    * University of Utah (withdrew June 30, 1999 to form the Mountain West Conference)

    * University of Wyoming (withdrew June 30, 1999 to form the Mountain West Conference)

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 runner-up trophy and ASU winning the CWS in 1965, 1967, and 1969. UTEP, recently renamed from Texas Western College, and Colorado State 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, Hawaiʻi. The WAC further expanded by adding Air Force in the summer of 1980. A college football national championship won by BYU in 1984 added to the WAC’s reputation as the best of the so-called mid-major conferences. The nine-team lineup 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 demise of the scandal-plagued Southwest Conference set off a chain reaction that affected conferences nationwide and the WAC was no exception. Rice, TCU, and SMU from the disbanded SWC were admitted into the WAC, along with San Jose State and UNLV from the Big West Conference as well as Tulsa from the Missouri Valley Conference to bring WAC membership to sixteen universities in two divisions.

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 1	Quadrant 2	Quadrant 3	Quadrant 4
Hawaiʻi	UNLV	BYU	Tulsa
Fresno State	Air Force	Utah	TCU
San Diego State	Colorado State	New Mexico	SMU
San Jose State	Wyoming	UTEP	Rice

 

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. ABC televised all three games.

Increasingly, this arrangement was not satisfactory to most of the older, pre-1990 members. Five members in particular (Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, Utah and Wyoming) felt that WAC expansion had compromised the athletic and academic excellence of the membership. Additional concerns centered around finances, as the new league stretched from Hawaiʻi to Oklahoma and travel costs became a concern. In 1999, those five schools, along with old line WAC schools New Mexico and San Diego State, as well as newcomer UNLV, would split off and form the Mountain West Conference, depriving the WAC of most of its competitive strength and almost all of its history. Only UTEP and Hawaiʻi would remain from the WAC’s “golden age,” and UTEP would ultimately leave the WAC as well.

Modern WAC

Since then, WAC membership has been in a state of flux. Nevada of the Big West joined in its plan to upgrade its athletic program in 2000. TCU left for Conference USA in 2001 (then rejoined eight former WAC opponents as the ninth member of the Mountain West in 2005), while Boise State of the Big West and independent Louisiana Tech joined the WAC in 2001.

Another large change of membership came in 2005, with the departure of four members to Conference USA: Rice, SMU, Tulsa, and UTEP. Joining the conference were three more universities (all land-grant schools) from the Big West - Idaho, Utah State, and New Mexico State (ex-Big West). When the Big West announced that it would drop football after the 2000 season, there were four members that wanted to continue their football programs. Boise State was invited to join the WAC and promptly departed, but UI, NMSU, and USU were left without a football conference in 2001. NMSU joined the Sun Belt Conference as a full-time member, but UI and USU remained in the Big West. Idaho joined the distant Sun Belt as a “football only” member in 2001 while Utah State operated as a football independent for two seasons. USU found scheduling extremely difficult, and it joined Idaho as a “football only” member of the Sun Belt in 2003.

Current members (and year joined)

Institution	Location	Founded	Affiliation	Enrollment	Joined
Boise State University	Boise, Idaho	1932	Public	19,500	2001
California State University, Fresno	Fresno, California	1911	Public (California State University system)	21,000	1992
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa	Honolulu, Hawaiʻi	1907	Public (University of Hawaiʻi System)	20,549	1979
University of Idaho	Moscow, Idaho	1889	Public	9,000	2005
Louisiana Tech University	Ruston, Louisiana	1894	Public (University of Louisiana System)	11,710	2001
University of Nevada, Reno	Reno, Nevada	1874	Public (Nevada System of Higher Education)	15,588	2000
New Mexico State University	Las Cruces, New Mexico	1888	Public	16,415	2005
San José State University	San Jose, California	1857	Public (California State University system)	28,932	1996
Utah State University	Logan, Utah	1888	Public (Utah System of Higher Education)	23,128	2005

 

Full members

    * Boise State Broncos

    * Fresno State Bulldogs

    * Hawaiʻi Warriors/Rainbow Wahine

    * Idaho Vandals

    * Louisiana Tech Bulldogs/Lady Techsters

    * Nevada Wolf Pack

    * New Mexico State Aggies

    * San Jose State Spartans

    * Utah State Aggies

Associate members

    * Sacramento State Hornets (baseball/women’s gymnastics)

    * Cal State Fullerton Titans (women’s gymnastics)

    * Cal State Northridge Matadors (indoor/outdoor track and field)

    * Southern Utah Lady Thunderbirds (women’s gymnastics)

    * Northern Arizona Lumberjacks (women’s swimming & diving)

    * San Diego Toreros (women’s swimming & diving)

Sports

The WAC crowns team and individual champions in 19 sports - 8 men’s and 11 women’s.

Men’s sports

    * Baseball

    * Basketball

    * Cross country

    * Football

    * Golf

    * Tennis

    * Indoor track and field

    * Outdoor track and field

Women’s sports

    * Basketball

    * Cross country

    * Golf

    * Gymnastics

    * Soccer

    * Softball

    * Swimming and diving

    * Tennis

    * Indoor track and field

    * Outdoor track and field

    * Volleyball

Former members

1978

    * Arizona (1962-78)

    * Arizona State (1962-78)

1999

    * BYU (1962-99)

    * New Mexico (1962-99)

    * Utah (1962-99)

    * Wyoming (1962-99)

    * Colorado State (1967-99)

    * San Diego State (1978-99)

    * Air Force (1980-99)

    * UNLV (1996-99)

2001

    * TCU (1996-2001)

2005

    * UTEP (1967-2005)

    * Rice (1996-2005)

    * SMU (1996-2005)

    * Tulsa (1996-2005)

Of the former members:

    * Two (Arizona and Arizona State) are currently members of the Pac-10.

    * Four (Rice, SMU, Tulsa, UTEP) are in Conference USA.

    * The remaining nine make up the current membership of the Mountain West Conference (TCU was in Conference USA from July 2001 through June 2005 before joining the Mountain West).

Conference facilities

School	Football stadium	Capacity	Basketball arena	Capacity	Baseball stadium	Capacity
Full Members
Boise State	Bronco Stadium	30,000	Taco Bell Arena	12,380	N/A
Fresno State	Bulldog Stadium	41,031	Save Mart Center	15,544	Beiden Field	5,422
Hawaiʻi	Aloha Stadium	50,000	Stan Sheriff Center	10,300	Les Murakami Stadium	4,312
Idaho	Kibbie Dome	16,000	Cowan Spectrum	7,000	N/A
Louisiana Tech	Joe Aillet Stadium	30,600	Thomas Assembly Center	8,000	J.C. Love Field	2,000
New Mexico State	Aggie Memorial Stadium	30,343	Pan American Center	13,071	Presley Askew Field	750
San Jose State	Spartan Stadium	30,578	The Event Center	5,000	San Jose Municipal Stadium	5,200
Utah State	Romney Stadium	25,513	Dee Glen Smith Spectrum	10,270	LaRee and LeGrand Johnson Field	500
Associate Members
Sacramento State		Hornet Stadium	1,200

 

Note:

    * Idaho uses the same structure for both its home football and basketball games, although it uses a different name for the venue’s basketball configuration. Also, Idaho has occasionally used Martin Stadium at Washington State University, only 8 miles (13 km) west, for a home football game. In 1999, while a member of the Big West Conference, Idaho played all of their home games at Martin Stadium and did not play a single game in the state of Idaho. This was due to the requirements by the Big West, and due to remodeling of the Kibbie Dome per the NCAA for Idaho to be a Division I-A, now FBS, school.

Rivalries

    * Conference

          o Boise State-Fresno State - Mostly in Football; the two Universities have a milk jug trophy to the winner of the game, started in 2005

          o Boise State-Idaho

          o Hawaiʻi-Fresno State

          o San José State-Fresno State

          o Louisiana Tech-Fresno State - Battle of The Bone; so named because both universities use Bulldogs as their mascots

    * Non-Conference

          o Hawaiʻi-BYU (Mountain West)

          o Idaho-Montana (Big Sky)

          o Idaho-Washington State (Pac 10) - Bae of the Palouse

          o Nevada-UNLV (Mountain West) - The Battle for Nevada and the Fremont Cannon

          o New Mexico State-New Mexico (Mountain West) - The Rio Grande Rivalry

          o New Mexico State-UTEP (Conference USA) - The Silver Spade

          o San José State-San Diego State (Mountain West)

          o San José State-Stanford (Pac 10)

          o Utah State-BYU (Mountain West)

          o Utah State-Utah (Mountain West) - The Beehive Boot

 Commissioners

    * Paul Brechler (1962-1968)

    * Wiles Hallock (1968-1971)

    * Stan Bates (1971-1980)

    * Dr.Joseph Kearney (1980-1994)

    * Karl Benson (1994-present)

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.

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 $2,000 postgraduate scholarship.

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 WAC Athletics Directors select the male award winner, while the WAC Senior Woman Administrators choose the female honoree.

National championships

The following teams have won NCAA national championships while being a member of the WAC:

    * Arizona - baseball (1976)

    * Arizona State - baseball (1965, 1967, 1969, 1977)

    * BYU - women’s cross country (1997)

    * Fresno State - softball (1998)

    * Rice - baseball (2003)

    * UNLV - men’s golf (1998)

The WAC has also produced one AP national champion in football:

    * BYU (1984)