The Big West Conference (BWC) is an American collegiate

athletic conference An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other in a sports league. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels. Conf ...

whose member institutions participate in the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

's Division I. The conference was originally formed on July 1, 1969, as the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (PCAA), and in 1988 was renamed the Big West Conference. The conference stopped sponsoring college football after the 2000 season. Among the conference's 11 member institutions, 10 are located in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

(with 9 located in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...

alone) and one is located in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

. All of the schools are public universities, with the California schools evenly split between the

California State University The California State University (Cal State or CSU) is a public university system in California. With 23 campuses and eight off-campus centers enrolling 485,550 students with 55,909 faculty and staff, CSU is the largest four-year public univers ...

and the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

systems. In addition, one affiliate member plays two sports in the BWC not sponsored by its home conference.

History

Pacific Coast Athletic Association

The Big West Conference was formed in June 1968 as the Pacific Coast Athletic Association. The five original charter members were

Fresno State California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) is a public university in Fresno, California. It is one of 23 campuses in the California State University system. The university had a fall 2020 enrollment of 25,341 students. It offers bachelo ...

San Jose State San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a public university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the oldest public university on the West Coast and the founding campus of the California State University (CSU) sy ...

UC Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

, San Diego State, and Long Beach State. Two other schools, Cal State Los Angeles and the University of the Pacific, were also considered but they declined at that time to pursue membership. The newly formed conference had a number of meetings to set up its governance, which was confirmed in October 1968 on the campus of UC Santa Barbara. Before the league started play, Cal State Los Angeles joined as a full member and the University of the Pacific joined for football only, becoming a full member itself two years later. The conference itself lists July 1, 1969, as its founding date, with the seven institutions beginning conference play that fall.

Evolution

Since its inception as the Pacific Coast Athletic Association, the conference has seen many changes. Utah State was the first institution outside of California to join the conference in 1978. This opened the floodgates for many other schools to affiliate with the PCAA; notable schools include UNLV,

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

Louisiana Tech Louisiana Tech University (Louisiana Tech, La. Tech, or simply Tech) is a public research university in Ruston, Louisiana. It is part of the University of Louisiana System and classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activi ...

, Boise State, and football-only members, such as Southwestern Louisiana and Arkansas State. In 1983, the PCAA became the first western conference to introduce women's athletic programs, allowing its female student-athletes to compete at the same level as their male counterparts. This proved vital for

Hawaiʻi Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

as their only participation in the conference was for their women's sports. However, many universities left to join conferences that were perceived as more well-known, such as the

Western Athletic Conference The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is an NCAA Division I conference. The WAC covers a broad expanse of the western United States with member institutions located in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, and Texas. Due to mos ...

or the

Mountain West Conference The Mountain West Conference (MW) is one of the collegiate athletic conferences affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) (formerly I-A). The MW officially began operations ...

, while others did not see the benefit of travel since historically many of the teams have been California-based. From the departures of Idaho and Utah State in 2005 until the arrival of Hawaii in 2012, all members were based in California, reducing the cost and travel time between the universities. When Hawaii joined, it agreed to help defray a portion of travel costs to that state for the league's California members. There have been no fewer than 25 full and associate members in the conference's history, while only two of the original seven charter members remain (Long Beach State and UC Santa Barbara, with only Long Beach State's membership being continuous).

The change to the Big West

Effective July 1, 1988, the Pacific Coast Athletic Association changed its name to the Big West Conference. With such schools as Utah State, UNLV, Nevada, New Mexico State, and Hawaii now in the fold, the name change was more representative of its member institutions. In addition, the conference had signed a contract with ESPN to have its men's basketball games telecast as the third game of a triple header known as '' Big Monday'' - the other conferences being featured were the

Big East The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and ...

and the Big Ten so the name Big West fit the theme.

Member schools

Current members

Full members

;Notes:

Affiliate members

;Notes:

Former members

Many of the former members of the Big West are now members of the

or the

. Of the nine schools that were in the WAC before its early-2010s realignment, only Hawaii had not spent some time in the Big West as a football participant – it was a Big West member only in women's sports. Of the former members, Cal State Los Angeles is the only team that reverted to Division II level. School names and nicknames reflect those used by the institutions when they were Big West members. One school has changed its name (Southwestern Louisiana, now branded athletically as Louisiana and also known as Louisiana–Lafayette) and one its nickname (Arkansas State, from Indians to Red Wolves).

Former full members

Former affiliate members

Former football-only members

;Notes

Membership timeline

ImageSize = width:1000 height:auto barincrement:20 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:20 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 #> to display a count on left side of graph, use "left:20" to suppress the count, use "left:20"<# DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:1969 till:2029 Colors = id:barcolor value:rgb(0.99,0.7,0.7) id:line value:black id:bg value:white id:Full value:rgb(0.742,0.727,0.852) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports id:FullxF value:rgb(0.551,0.824,0.777) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports except for football id:AssocF value:rgb(0.98,0.5,0.445) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member for football only id:AssocOS value:rgb(0.5,0.691,0.824) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in some sports, but not all (consider identifying in legend or a footnote) id:OtherC1 value:rgb(0.996,0.996,0.699) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference id:OtherC2 value:rgb(0.988,0.703,0.383) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference where OtherC1 has already been used, to distinguish the two PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:1 color:Full from:1969 till:1974 text: Cal State Los Angeles (1969–1974) bar:1 shift:(100) color:OtherC1 from:1974 till:end text: CCAA bar:2 color:Full from:1969 till:1976 text: San Diego State (1969–1978) bar:2 color:FullxF from:1976 till:1978 bar:2 color:OtherC1 from:1978 till:1999 text: WAC bar:2 color:OtherC2 from:1999 till:end text: MW bar:2 color:AssocOS from:2012 till:2013 text:(w. water polo, 2012-2013) bar:3 color:Full from:1969 till:1992 text:

(1969–1992) bar:3 color:OtherC1 from:1992 till:2012 text: WAC bar:3 color:OtherC2 from:2012 till:end text: MW bar:4 color:Full from:1969 till:1996 text:

(1969–1996) bar:4 color:OtherC1 from:1996 till:2013 text: WAC bar:4 color:OtherC2 from:2013 till:end text: MW bar:5 color:AssocF from:1969 till:1971 text:

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

(1969–2013) bar:5 color:Full from:1971 till:1996 bar:5 color:FullxF from:1996 till:2013 bar:5 color:OtherC1 from:2013 till:end text: WCC bar:6 color:Full from:1969 till:1974 text:

(1969–1974; 1976–present) bar:6 color:OtherC1 from:1974 till:1976 text: bar:6 color:FullxF from:1976 till:end text: bar:7 color:Full from:1969 till:1992 text: Long Beach State (1969–present) bar:7 color:FullxF from:1992 till:end bar:8 color:Full from:1974 till:1992 text:

Cal State Fullerton California State University, Fullerton (CSUF or Cal State Fullerton) is a public university in Fullerton, California. With a total enrollment of more than 41,000, it has the largest student body of the 23-campus California State University (CSU) ...

(1974–present) bar:8 color:FullxF from:1992 till:end bar:9 color:FullxF from:1977 till:end text:

UC Irvine UC may refer to: Arts and entertainment * '' University Challenge'', a popular British quiz programme airing on BBC Two ** ''University Challenge (New Zealand)'', the New Zealand version of the British programme * Universal Century, one of the t ...

(1977–present) bar:10 color:Full from:1978 till:2001 text: Utah State (1978–2005) bar:10 color:FullxF from:2001 till:2005 bar:10 color:OtherC1 from:2005 till:2013 text: WAC bar:10 color:OtherC2 from:2013 till:end text: MW bar:11 color:Full from:1982 till:1996 text: UNLV (1982–1996) bar:11 color:OtherC1 from:1996 till:1999 text: WAC bar:11 color:OtherC2 from:1999 till:end text: MW bar:12 color:FullxF from:1983 till:1984 text:

New Mexico State New Mexico State University (NMSU or NM State) is a public land-grant research university based primarily in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest public institution of higher education in New Mexico and one of the state's tw ...

(1983–2000) bar:12 color:Full from:1984 till:2000 bar:12 color:AssocF from:2000 till:2001 bar:12 color:OtherC1 from:2001 till:2005 text: Sun Belt bar:12 color:OtherC2 from:2005 till:2023 text: WAC bar:12 color:OtherC1 from:2023 till:end text:

C-USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are ...

bar:13 color:AssocOS from:1984 till:1990 text:

Cal Poly Pomona California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona, CPP, or Cal Poly"Cal Poly" may also refer to California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in San Luis Obispo. See the ''name'' section of this article for more infor ...

(softball, 1984–1990) bar:14 color:AssocOS from:1984 till:1996 text:

(women's sports, 1984–1996) bar:14 color:OtherC1 from:1996 till:2012 text: WAC bar:14 color:FullxF from:2012 till:end text:(2012–present) bar:15 color:Full from:1992 till:2000 text:

(1992–2000) bar:15 color:OtherC1 from:2000 till:2012 text: WAC bar:15 color:OtherC2 from:2012 till:end text: MW bar:16 color:AssocF from:1993 till:1996 text:

(1993–1995) bar:17 color:AssocF from:1993 till:1996 text:

Northern Illinois Northern Illinois is a region generally covering the northern third of the U.S. state of Illinois. The region is by far the most populous of Illinois with nearly 9.7 million residents as of 2010. Economics Northern Illinois is dominated by t ...

(1993–1995) bar:18 color:AssocF from:1993 till:1996 text: SW Louisiana (1993–1995) bar:19 color:AssocF from:1993 till:1996 text: Arkansas State (1993–1995, 1999-2001) bar:19 color:AssocF from:1999 till:2001 text: bar:20 color:Full from:1996 till:2000 text:

North Texas North Texas (also commonly called North Central Texas) is a term used primarily by residents of Dallas, Fort Worth, and surrounding areas to describe much of the north central portion of the U.S. state of Texas. Residents of the Dallas–Fort Wo ...

(1996–2000) bar:20 color:AssocF from:2000 till:2001 bar:20 shift:(50) color:OtherC1 from:2001 till:2013 text: Sun Belt bar:20 color:OtherC2 from:2013 till:2023 text:

bar:20 color:OtherC1 from:2023 till:end text: American bar:21 color:Full from:1996 till:2001 text: Boise State (1996–2001) bar:21 shift:(50) color:OtherC1 from:2001 till:2011 text: WAC bar:21 color:OtherC2 from:2011 till:end text: MW bar:22 color:Full from:1996 till:2001 text: Idaho (1996–2005) bar:22 color:FullxF from:2001 till:2005 bar:22 color:OtherC1 from:2005 till:2014 text: WAC bar:22 color:OtherC2 from:2014 till:end text: Big Sky bar:23 color:AssocOS from:1996 till:2002 text: Sacramento State (baseball, 1996–2002, m. soccer, 2012–present & beach v'ball, 2015-present) bar:23 color:AssocOS from:2012 till:end bar:24 color:FullxF from:1996 till:end text: Cal Poly (1996–present) bar:25 color:FullxF from:2001 till:end text:

Cal State Northridge California State University, Northridge (CSUN or Cal State Northridge) is a public university in the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. With a total enrollment of 38,551 students (as of Fall 2021), it has the second largest u ...

(2001–present) bar:26 color:FullxF from:2001 till:end text:

UC Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. Th ...

(2001–present) bar:27 color:FullxF from:2007 till:end text: UC Davis (2007–present) bar:28 shift:(-150,-5) color:AssocOS from:2015 till:end text: CSU Bakersfield (beach volleyball, 2015–present; full member, 2020–present) bar:28 color:FullXF from:2020 till:end bar:29 shift:(-300,-5) color:AssocOS from:2017 till:2020 text:

UC San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

(m. volleyball, 2017–present; w. water polo, 2019–present; full member, 2020–present) bar:29 color:FullXF from:2020 till:end bar:N color:blue from:1969 till:1988 text:Pacific Collegiate Athletic Association (PCAA) bar:N color:powderblue from:1988 till:end text:Big West Conference ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:2 start:1970 TextData = fontsize:M textcolor:black pos:(0,30) tabs:(400-center) text:^"Big West Conference Membership History" #> If the chart uses more than one bar color, add a legend by selecting the appropriate fields from the following six options (use only the colors that are used in the graphic.) Leave a blank line after the end of the timeline, then add a line with the selected values from the list, separated by a space. <# Notes * San Diego State played football as an independent for the 1976 and 1977 seasons prior to leaving the Big West Conference in 1978. * UC Santa Barbara was an independent from 1974–75 to 1975–76. * Cal State Fullerton played football as an independent for the 1992 season and dropped football entirely the following year. * Louisiana Tech, Northern Illinois, Southwestern Louisiana, and Arkansas State joined the Big West for a short-lived football consortium from 1993 to 1995. * Arkansas State played football as an independent from 1996 to 1998 and then rejoined the Big West for football during the 1999 and 2000 seasons.

Sports

The Big West Conference currently sponsors 18 NCAA sports, with men's volleyball the newest addition for the 2017–18 school year. In baseball, Cal State Fullerton has won four College World Series titles with national championships in 1979, 1984, 1995, and 2004. In addition, Long Beach State and UC Irvine have made multiple appearances in the College World Series. Fullerton also has a national championship in softball, winning in 1984. Long Beach State has won three NCAA women's volleyball titles, as a part of

Big West Conference women's volleyball Big West Conference women's volleyball is an American collegiate volleyball conference. It includes 10-12 women's teams from various colleges and universities. Before the 2017–18 school year, the Big West sponsored volleyball only for women, but ...

, with national championships in 1989, 1993, and 1998.

Misty May-Treanor Misty Elizabeth May-Treanor (; née May; born July 30, 1977) is a retired American professional beach volleyball player. She is a three-time Olympic gold medalist, and , was the most successful female beach volleyball player having won 112 tour ...

led the 49ers (now known as Beach) to a 36–0 record en route to the program's most recent title. UC Santa Barbara was the NCAA men's soccer runner-up in 2004, losing the national championship match to Indiana on penalty kicks. The Gauchos returned to the College Cup in 2006 and won the national championship. Former Big West members UNLV and Pacific won national championships while part of the conference. The UNLV Runnin' Rebels men's basketball team won the 1990 NCAA tournament championship after routing Duke 103-73 in the national title game. UNLV was undefeated during the 1991 NCAA men's basketball season before falling to Duke in the final four. The Runnin' Rebels during this era are widely considered one of the best college basketball teams of all time. The Pacific Tigers women's volleyball team won back-to-back national championships in 1985 and 1986. The Big West did not sponsor men's volleyball or men's water polo, but it was the primary conference affiliation of several schools that compete in the

Mountain Pacific Sports Federation The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) is a college athletic conference with members located mostly in the western United States, although it now has members as far east as Pennsylvania. The conference participates at the NCAA Division I ...

for these sports, respectively. In NCAA men's volleyball, UC Irvine has established itself as one of the nation's most elite programs, winning four national championships in 2007, 2009, 2012, and 2013. Long Beach State also won men's national volleyball titles in 1991, 2018 and 2019. In NCAA men's water polo, UC Irvine won three national championships in 1970, 1982, and 1989. UC Santa Barbara also won a men's water polo title in 1979. On May 31, 2016, the Big West announced the conference would sponsor men's volleyball as its 18th sport, with five Big West schools leaving the MPSF to establish the new men's volleyball league. Men's volleyball is the third of four sports in which the MPSF has recently seen a mass exodus of teams to join an existing conference in a newly sponsored sport, with men's soccer, men's water polo, and women's lacrosse as the others. The men's volleyball membership includes core Big West members Cal State Northridge, Long Beach State, Hawaii, UC Irvine, and UC Santa Barbara. UC San Diego joined as an affiliate to bring the league to the NCAA minimum requirement of 6 teams to receive an automatic bid for the NCAA tournament. Big West Commissioner Dennis Farrell explained that adding UC San Diego was not an indicator UC San Diego would be added to the Big West Conference as a full member. UC San Diego had recently passed a bill to move all their sports to Division I and was looking for an invite from the Big West Conference. UC San Diego has long competed at the Division I level in men's volleyball; the NCAA conducts a single national championship open to all Division I and II members, and scholarship limits in the sport are the same in both divisions. The Big West regular season for men's volleyball will be double round-robin, each team playing the others once at home and once on the road. The Big West Tournament will have all six teams participate in single-elimination rounds with the top two teams receiving semifinal byes. The Big West is the first Division I all-sports conference (defined as a league that sponsors men's and women's basketball) ever to sponsor men's volleyball, and the second NCAA all-sports conference overall to sponsor men's volleyball as a scholarship sport (the first was the Division II Conference Carolinas). On November 26, 2017 the Big West announced that it would add UC San Diego along with Cal State Bakersfield as its 10th and 11th members starting on July 1, 2020. Cal State Bakersfield, which was already a full Division I member competing in the

, became a full member effective July 1, 2020. UC San Diego, which had failed to move up from Division II in failed bids to the Big West in 2011 and April 2017, has begun the four-year transition process to Division I and will become a full member effective July 1, 2024. UC San Diego's men's volleyball joined the Big West in 2017, in advance of that sport's 2018 season, and women's water polo joined in 2019. Because the NCAA does not sponsor a Division II championship in either men's volleyball or women's water polo, UCSD was eligible for conference championships in both sports upon joining the Big West, and will remain eligible for such during the D-I transition. UC San Diego and Cal State Bakersfield officially joined the conference on July 1, 2020 and Dan Butterly became the new commissioner following the retirement of Dennis Farrell.

Men's sponsored sports by school

Women's sponsored sports by school

Former sports

Football

An asterisk denotes the participant in the bowls that invited the Big West champion:
Pasadena (1969–70),

(1981–91),

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

(1992–96), and Humanitarian (1997–2000) The Big West Conference discontinued football following the 2000 season.

Facilities

Commissioner's Cup

Started during the Big West Conference's 1998–99 season, the Commissioner's Cup is awarded yearly to the most outstanding program over the course of the season in the conference's sponsored sports. The

UC Santa Barbara Gauchos The UC Santa Barbara Gauchos are the intercollegiate athletic teams who represent the University of California, Santa Barbara. Referred to in athletic competition as ''UC Santa Barbara'' or ''UCSB'', the Gauchos participate in 19 NCAA Division I ...

are the most successful team to date having won 10 total trophies.

Overall Commissioner's Cups Table

Note 1: Bold indicates current members of the Big West Conference
Note 2: The Pacific Tigers moved to the West Coast Conference in 2013

So Cal Challenge

Since 2021, the Big West Conference has served as host of the So Cal Challenge, an eight-team men's basketball tournament held during Monday and Wednesday of Thanksgiving week. One Big West team represents the conference in the field of each tournament. Cal Poly and participated in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

References

External links

* {{NCAA nonfootball Div1 conferences Sports organizations established in 1969 Articles which contain graphical timelines