History
The conference began operating on December 3, 1937, when most of the larger schools in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference left to form a new conference. [1] The seven charter members of the conference were: BYU, Colorado, Colorado A&M (now Colorado State), Denver, Utah, Utah State, and Wyoming. [1] At the time of formation, the formal name of Mountain States Athletic Conference was adopted, [2] although newspapers were already calling it the Big Seven at that time. [3] The conference became popularly known as the Skyline Conference or Skyline Six after Colorado left in 1947. [4] Colorado joined the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MVIAA), informally known as the Big Six Conference, which took over the Big Seven name and would later become the Big Eight Conference.
The conference became known as the Skyline Eight after New Mexico and Montana joined in 1951. [5] The conference officially dissolved as of July 1, 1962, after four of its members (BYU, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming) departed to form the Western Athletic Conference (WAC). [6] Montana operated as an independent for one football season in 1962 until the formation of the Big Sky Conference in 1963. Colorado State became independent until it joined the WAC in 1968. Utah State operated as an independent for fifteen seasons, until it joined the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (later named the Big West Conference) in 1977.
The conference first had a full-time commissioner in 1949, appointing Dick Romney, who had led the Utah State Aggies football program since 1919. [7] He was succeeded in August 1960 by Paul Brechler, who had been athletic director at the University of Iowa. [8] [9] Brechler served as commissioner until the conference disbanded, and became the first commissioner of the WAC. [10]
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