A West Coast Conference is an NCAA collegiate athletic conference consisting of eight member schools in California, Oregon, and Washington. It was founded inside 1952 by a class action of 5 schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. Everthing of the todays members come personal, religiously-affiliated institutions; quatern of the eight come Jesuit, and sole Pepperdine is not Catholic. These are too the remarkably stable union in the constantly ever-changing globe of college athletics. a WCC has non experienced a school join or even leave the conference since 1980. Just ii conferences, a Ivy League and the Pac-10, have remained unchanged for the yearn period.

A WCC participates inside NCAA Section We. A conference sponsors Baker's dozen sports however doesn't include football as one of them. As a matter of fact, San Diego is a only conference member that however plays football at any level--a rest use either dropped the sport or even never sponsored it in the 1st place. A WCC's strongest sports historically keep close at hand been soccer (seven national champions, including consecutive-to-back women's association football titles around 2001 and 2002) and tennis (five single champions & a single team champion). A conference has besides manufactured its presence felt nationally inside men's basketball, with San Francisco winning two sequentially national titles in the Fifties by owning completely-period outstanding Bill Russell, Loyola Marymount's inspired NCAA tournament run in 1990 following the tragic death of Hank Gathers during that season's WCC championship tournament, and most recently Gonzaga's rise to national prominence since the late 1990s.

Current members (and year joined)
Gonzaga University (1979) Loyola Marymount University (1955) Pepperdine University (1955) University of Portland (1976) St. Mary's College (California) (1952) University of San Diego (1979) University of San Francisco (1952) Santa Clara University (1952)

Former members
University of the Pacific (1952-1971) San Jose State University (1952-1969) California State University, Fresno (=Fresno State) (1955-1957) University of California, Santa Barbara (=UCSB) (1964-1969) University of Nevada (1969-1979) University of Nevada, Las Vegas (=UNLV) (1969-1975) Seattle University (1971-1980)

Sports
A WCC sponsors intercollegiate competition within men’s baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s golf, men's and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s tennis, women's rowing, and women’s volleyball.

Famous athletes
A bit of of the illustrious jock world health organization played collegiately in the WCC include NBA legends Bill Russell and John Stockton; current NBA star Steve Nash; Brandi Chastain, Shannon MacMillan and Tiffeny Milbrett of the 1999 USA Women's World Cup champions; USA men's soccer team goalkeeper Kasey Keller; former major league pitchers Mike Scott and Tom Candiotti; and current major league outfielder Jason Bay.