The Western Collegiate Athletic Association (WCAA) was a women's-only athletic conference on the West Coast of the United States.
Members competed in the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) until the 1981–82 academic year, then the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). For its final year in 1985–86, the league was renamed Pacific West Conference; the Pac-10 Conference added women's sports in 1986 and the WCAA was retired. [1]
The WCAA was founded in 1976 with seven charter members: UCLA, USC, Arizona, Arizona State, Cal State-Fullerton, Long Beach State, and San Diego State. These seven were among the premier programs in many women's sports and were previously independent. The men's teams at these schools competed in three leagues: Pacific-8, WAC, and PCAA. The seven WCAA schools represented the entirety of Division I football schools in southern California and Arizona. The NCAA began sponsoring women's championships in the summer of 1981, and the WCAA moved from the AIAW to the NCAA.
Stanford joined in 1982, and the WCAA had eight members for three years; the PCAA added women's sports in 1985, so Long Beach State and Cal State-Fullerton moved. San Diego State also joined the PCAA for women's sports only (the WAC did not sponsor women's sports until 1990; its parallel league was the "High Country Athletic Conference").
The remaining five members of the WCAA, all Pac-10 schools, competed in the renamed "PacWest Conference" for a final academic year (1985–86); the Pac-10 added women's sports in the summer of 1986. Its other five schools (Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, and California) had been members of the Northern Pacific Conference, which was also retired.
Similarly in the west, the Mountain West Athletic Conference (MWAC) was the women's league for the Big Sky Conference until 1988.
The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that operates in the Western United States. Its twelve members are located in the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. They include The Pac-12 participates at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level for all sports, and its football teams competes in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the highest level of NCAA football competition.
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 level, primarily in Olympic sports that are not directly sponsored by a school's home conference.
The Big West Conference (BWC) is an American collegiate athletic conference whose member institutions participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association'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.
The NCAA Men's Water Polo Championship is an annual tournament to determine the national champion of NCAA men's collegiate water polo. Beginning in 1969, it has been held every year except 2020, when it was postponed to March 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. With a limited number of NCAA water polo programs at the national level, all men's teams, whether from Division I, Division II, or Division III, are eligible to compete each year in the National Collegiate tournament. The tournament was expanded from a four-team bracket in 2013 by adding two play-in games that are contested by the bottom four seeds, effectively creating a six-team bracket with a first-round bye for the top two teams. This makes it the sport with the fewest teams reaching the NCAA tournament; this is because there are only 43 men's water polo teams between all three NCAA divisions.
The NCAA Women's Water Polo Championship has existed since the 2001 season. Seven conferences have teams competing in women's water polo: the Big West Conference, the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA), the single-sport Golden Coast Conference, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC), the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF), the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) and the Western Water Polo Association (WWPA). Some teams compete at Division III either as members of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference or independently. Teams qualify by either winning their respective conference tournament or receiving one of the few at large bids available. Unlike most NCAA sports, only one National Collegiate championship is held each season with teams from Division I, Division II, and Division III competing together.
The Women's College World Series (WCWS) is the final portion of the NCAA Division I softball tournament for college softball in the United States. The eight teams of the WCWS play a double-elimination tournament until just two teams remain. These two teams compete in a best-of-three series to determine the Division I WCWS National Champion. Previous WCWS losses do not factor into the best-of-three championship series, and the first team to win two of three games is declared the National Champion.
The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women was founded in 1971 to govern collegiate women's athletics and to administer national championships. During its existence, the AIAW and its predecessor, the Division for Girls' and Women's Sports (DGWS), recognized via these championships the teams and individuals who excelled at the highest level of women's collegiate competition.
The California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. All of its current members are public universities, and upon UC San Diego's departure on July 1, 2020, all are members of the California State University system.
The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Pac-12 Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF). For football, they are in the Football Bowl Subdivision of Division I. UCLA is second to only Stanford University as the school with the most NCAA team championships at 123 NCAA team championships. UCLA offers 11 varsity sports programs for men and 14 for women.
The Hawaii Rainbow Wahine volleyball team is the NCAA Division I women's volleyball team for the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. They are a member of the Big West Conference and are led by head coach, Robyn Ah M, Mow-Santos. The Rainbow Wahine volleyball program remains a large source of financial income for the University of Hawaii athletic department, notwithstanding even what football and men's basketball generates.
The Cal State Fullerton Titans are the athletic teams that represent California State University, Fullerton.
The Sacramento State Hornets is the team that represents California State University, Sacramento in intercollegiate athletics.
The 1986 Freedom Bowl was a college football bowl game played on December 30, 1986. It was the third Freedom Bowl Game. The UCLA Bruins defeated the BYU Cougars 31–10. UCLA tailback Gaston Green was named the Player Of The Game. He ran for a record 266 yards, second only at the time to Curtis Dickey who ran for 276 in the 1978 Hall of Fame Classic. This is still the Pac-10 record for most rushing yards in a bowl game, and fourth highest in NCAA bowl history.
The UCLA Bruins women's basketball program was established in 1974. The current coach is Cori Close. The team was a member of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) until joining the NCAA in 1984. The UCLA Bruins women's basketball team won the AIAW National Championship in 1978, and a banner commemorating the championship hangs in Pauley Pavilion, the current home of the Bruins basketball teams. The 2014–15 team won the 2015 WNIT championship.
The NCAA Division I women's volleyball tournament is an annual event that leads to the championship in women's volleyball from teams in Division I contested by the NCAA each winter since 1981. Texas won the most recent tournament, defeating Nebraska 3–0 at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida.
The Cal State Fullerton Titans women's tennis team competes at the NCAA Division I Collegiate level and is a member of the Big West Conference. All home collegiate tennis matches are played at the California State University, Fullerton, Titan Courts, located in Fullerton, California.
The 2017 NCAA Division I women's soccer tournament was the 36th annual single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion of NCAA Division I women's collegiate soccer. The semifinals and championship game were played at Orlando City Stadium in Orlando, Florida on December 1 and 3, 2017, while the preceding rounds were played at various sites across the country during November 2017. The Stanford Cardinal were tournament champions, winning the final 3–2 over the UCLA Bruins.