The American West Conference (AWC) was a

college athletic conference In college athletics in the United States, institutions typically join in conferences for regular play under different governing bodies. Varsity sports There are several national and regional associations governing the varsity teams of colleges ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

from 1993 to 1996. It consisted of schools in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

. The charter members of the conference were

California Polytechnic State University California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (California Polytechnic State University, Cal Poly"Cal Poly" may also refer to California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt in Arcata, California or California State Polytechnic Univ ...

;

California State University, 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 un ...

;

California State University, Sacramento California State University, Sacramento (CSUS, Sacramento State, or informally Sac State) is a public university in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1947 as Sacramento State College, it is the eleventh oldest school in the 23-campus California ...

; the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

; and

Southern Utah University Southern Utah University (SUU) is a public university in Cedar City, Utah. Founded in 1897 as a normal school, Southern Utah University now graduates over 1,800 students each year with baccalaureate and graduate degrees from its six colleges. ...

. The conference comprised schools from the old

Western Football Conference Western Football Conference may refer to: * Canadian Football League West Division, one of the two regional divisions of the Canadian Football League * Western Football Conference (United States) The Western Football Conference was an NCAA Divisi ...

that had recently made the move from

NCAA Division II NCAA Division II (D-II) is an intermediate-level division of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It offers an alternative to both the larger and better-funded Division I and to the scholarship-free environmen ...

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of College athletics, intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major ...

. The conference was founded on July 15, 1993, as an NCAA Division I-AA

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

-only conference. It added additional sports a year later. The members were prompted to move their programs in response to an

NCAA 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 an ...

ruling barring member institutions from competing in football at a lower level than other sports. The only commissioner of the American West Conference was Vic Buccola who had been the athletic director at Cal Poly from 1973 to 1981, and commissioner of the Western Football Conference from 1981 to 1992.

History

1993–94: I-AA football only

UC Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

and Southern Utah tied for the 1993 AWC football championship with 3–1 records. Although UC Davis was a conference member, the team was listed in Division II polls, and participated in the Division II postseason.

1994–95

UC Davis left the AWC after the 1993 season, leaving Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Cal State Northridge, Sacramento State, Southern Utah for the 1994–95 season. In the 1994–95 season, the AWC sponsored men's and women's cross country, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's track and field, and women's tennis, in addition to football. The AWC did not have an automatic bid to the NCAA championships since the NCAA requires a conference to have six teams. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo won the 1994 AWC football championship.

1995–96

The 1995–96 season was the last season of the AWC. Cal Poly accepted an invitation to the

Big West 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 ...

. Cal State Northridge and Sacramento State accepted invitations to the

Big Sky Conference The Big Sky Conference (BSC) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division I with football competing in the Football Championship Subdivision. Member institutions are located in the western United States in the eigh ...

. Southern Utah became an independent until they became members of the Mid-Continent Conference, now called the

Summit League The Summit League, or The Summit, is an NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletic conference with its membership mostly located in the Midwestern United States from Illinois on the East of the Mississippi River to the Dakotas and Nebraska on the W ...

, in 1997. By winning the 400 Meter Intermediate Hurdle championship races in both 1995 and 1996, David Baeza became the only Men's 400IH American West Conference Champion in history. He also won the 1996 400m Dash Championship race after finishing 3rd in the 1995 championship race.

Aftermath

Cal State Northridge left the Big Sky for the Big West in 2001. That year, they operated as a I-AA independent in football, and in 2002 their football program was dropped. UC Davis made the decision to move up to Division I in 2003, and in 2007 they joined Cal State Northridge and Cal Poly in the Big West. Former AWC members UC Davis, Cal Poly, and Southern Utah would later found the

Great West Football Conference The Great West Conference (GWC) was an NCAA college athletic conference in the continental United States. Originally a football-only league, it became an all-sports entity during the 2008–09 season. The GWC stopped sponsoring football following ...

(later renamed the Great West Conference), along with newcomers

Northern Colorado Northern Colorado is the name for a region in the state of Colorado and a proposed state in the northeastern portion of Colorado. Region Northern Colorado is a region in the northern portion of Colorado. It borders northwestern Colorado, nort ...

North Dakota State North Dakota State University (NDSU, formally North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Sciences) is a public land-grant research university in Fargo, North Dakota. It was founded as North Dakota Agricultural College in 1890 as t ...

, and

South Dakota State South Dakota State University is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Brookings, South Dakota. Founded in 1881, it is the state's largest and most comprehensive university and the oldest continually ...

from the

North Central Conference The North Central Conference (NCC), also known as North Central Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, was a college athletic conference which operated in the north central United States. It participated in the NCAA's Division II. History The NCC ...

, as a home for their football programs at the I-AA level in 2004. This conference remained small much like the AWC for its entire existence, ranging from only 5 to 6 football members at any given time. In late 2010, the

announced it would add UC Davis and Cal Poly as football-only members, as well as Southern Utah as a full member, thus reuniting these schools with Sacramento State in football. This move effectively dissolved the Great West as a football-sponsoring conference.

Timeline

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:850 height:auto barincrement:30 Period = from:1993 till:2014 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:30 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 Colors = id:barcolor id:line value:black id:bg value:white PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:1 color:Red from:1993 till:1994 text:

bar:1 color:blue from:1994 shift:(80,-5) till:2003 text: CCAA bar:1 color:white from:2003 till:2007 text:

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

bar:1 color:tan1 from:2007 till:2014 text:

Big West 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 ...

bar:2 color:Red from:1993 till:1994 text: Cal Poly bar:2 color:powderblue from:1994 till:1996 bar:2 color:tan1 from:1996 till:2014 text:

bar:3 color:Red from:1993 till:1994 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 un ...

bar:3 color:powderblue from:1994 till:1996 bar:3 color:green from:1996 till:2001 text: Big Sky bar:3 color:tan1 from:2001 till:2014 text:

bar:4 color:Red from:1993 till:1994 text:

Sacramento State California State University, Sacramento (CSUS, Sacramento State, or informally Sac State) is a public university in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1947 as Sacramento State College, it is the eleventh oldest school in the 23-campus California ...

bar:4 color:powderblue from:1994 till:1996 bar:4 color:green from:1996 till:2014 text: Big Sky bar:5 color:Red from:1993 till:1994 text:

Southern Utah Southern Utah University (SUU) is a public university in Cedar City, Utah. Founded in 1897 as a normal school, Southern Utah University now graduates over 1,800 students each year with baccalaureate and graduate degrees from its six colleges. ...

bar:5 color:powderblue from:1994 till:1996 bar:5 color:white from:1996 till:1997 text:

Indy Indy may refer to: Computing and technology *Indy (software), used for Internet access to music *Internet Direct, or "Indy", a software library *SGI Indy, a computer workstation Periodicals *''The Indy'', shorthand for newspapers that include " ...

bar:5 color:tan2 from:1997 till:2012 text: The Summit bar:5 color:green from:2012 till:2014 text: Big Sky ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:1 start:1993 TextData = fontsize:L textcolor:black pos:(260,30) # tabs:(0-center) text:"American West Conference Membership History"

Champions

Men's basketball

Regular season

*1995 Southern Utah *1996 Cal Poly

Conference tournament

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

Southern Utah *

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

Southern Utah

Men's Track & Field

400m

1996 David Baeza - Cal Poly

400IH

1995 David Baeza - Cal Poly 1996 David Baeza - Cal Poly

Football standings

References

* 1995 Cal State Northridge football media guide, p. 32 {{reflist Sports in the Western United States Defunct NCAA Division I conferences Sports leagues established in 1993 Sports leagues disestablished in 1996 Articles which contain graphical timelines 1993 establishments in the United States 1996 disestablishments in the United States