The Northwest Conference (NWC) is an athletic conference which competes in the

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 ...

Division III In sport, the Third Division, also called Division 3, Division Three, or Division III, is often the third-highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Association football *Belgian Thir ...

. Member teams are located in the states of

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

and

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. It was known as the Pacific Northwest Conference from 1926 to 1984.

History

The NWC was formed in 1926, making it one of the oldest continuously existing athletics conferences in the western United States. For 60 years, the Northwest Conference sponsored sports exclusively for men, but in 1984 it joined with the Women's Conference of Independent Colleges to become the Northwest Conference of Independent Colleges, shortening the name to its current moniker in 1996 when it joined the NCAA. The charter members included

Willamette University Willamette University is a private liberal arts college with locations in Salem and Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1842, it is the oldest college in the Western United States. Originally named the Oregon Institute, the school was an unaffiliated ...

Pacific University Pacific University is a private university in Forest Grove, Oregon. Founded in 1849 as the Tualatin Academy, the original Forest Grove campus is west of Portland. The university maintains three other campuses in Eugene, Hillsboro, and Wood ...

Whitman College Whitman College is a private liberal arts college in Walla Walla, Washington. The school offers 53 majors and 33 minors in the liberal arts and sciences, and it has a student-to-faculty ratio of 9:1. Whitman was the first college in the Pacifi ...

, the College of Puget Sound (now the

University of Puget Sound The University of Puget Sound (UPS or Puget Sound) is a private university in Tacoma, Washington. The university draws approximately 2,600 students from 44 states and 16 countries. It offers 1,200 courses each year in more than 50 traditional an ...

Linfield College Linfield University is a private university with campuses in McMinnville, and Portland, Oregon. Linfield Wildcats athletics participates in the NCAA Division III Northwest Conference. Linfield reported a combined 1,755 students after the fall ...

and the

College of Idaho The College of Idaho (C of I) is a private liberal arts college in Caldwell, Idaho. Founded in 1891, it is the state's oldest private liberal arts college and has an enrollment of over 1,000 students. The college's alumni include eight Rhode ...

. In 1931, Albany College joined, left in 1938, and re-joined in 1949 using its present name of

Lewis & Clark College Lewis & Clark College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Originally chartered in 1867 as the Albany Collegiate Institute in Albany, Oregon, the college was relocated to Portland in 1938 and in 1942 adopted the name Lewis & Cl ...

Pacific Lutheran University Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) is a private Lutheran university in Parkland, Washington. It was founded by Norwegian Lutheran immigrants in 1890. PLU is sponsored by the 580 congregations of Region I of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ame ...

was added in 1965, and

Whitworth University Whitworth University is a private, Christian university affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and located in Spokane, Washington. Founded in 1890, Whitworth enrolls nearly 3,000 students and offers more than 100 graduate and undergraduate ...

in 1970. In 1978, the College of Idaho dropped out of the conference. Whitworth also left in 1984, but then returned in 1988. In 1996,

George Fox University George Fox University is a private Christian university in Newberg, Oregon. Founded as a school for Quakers in 1891, it is now the largest private university in Oregon with more than 4,000 students combined between its main campus in Newberg, ...

joined when the conference moved to the NCAA and Puget Sound re-joined in that same year since 1948. From 2006 to 2010,

Menlo College Menlo College is a private college specializing in business and is located in Atherton, California. Campus Menlo College is situated on 45-acre (0.18 km2) campus in Atherton, California, 25 miles southeast of San Francisco and 20 miles nort ...

was also a part of the conference as an associate member in football. The College of Idaho reinstated its football program in 2014 after a 37-year hiatus and joined the

Frontier Conference The Frontier Conference is a List of college athletic conferences in the United States, college athletic conference affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). The conference was founded in 1934. Member institut ...

for football. C of I is now a member of the NAIA's

Cascade Collegiate Conference The Cascade Collegiate Conference (or Cascade Conference) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). Member schools are located in the Northwestern United States. The conferen ...

for other sports. Whitworth left the NWC in 1984 but returned in 1988.

and

Seattle University Seattle University (SeattleU) is a private Jesuit university in Seattle, Washington. Seattle University is the largest independent university in the Northwestern United States, with over 7,500 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate prog ...

joined the conference in 1997. Seattle dropped out again in 1999 to become members of NCAA Division II.

joined the conference in 2005 as a football-only member.

Chronlogical timeline

* 1926 - The NWC was founded as the Pacific Northwest Conference (PNWC). Charter members include the

, the

College of Puget Sound The University of Puget Sound (UPS or Puget Sound) is a private university in Tacoma, Washington. The university draws approximately 2,600 students from 44 states and 16 countries. It offers 1,200 courses each year in more than 50 traditional an ...

(now the University of Puget Sound),

and

, effective beginning the 1926-27 academic year. * 1931 -

Albany College Lewis & Clark College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Originally chartered in 1867 as the Albany Collegiate Institute in Albany, Oregon, the college was relocated to Portland in 1938 and in 1942 adopted the name Lewis & ...

(now Lewis & Clark College) joined the PNWC, effective in the 1931-32 academic year. * 1938 - Lewis & Clark left the PNWC, effective after the 1937-38 academic year. * 1948 - Puget Sound left the PNWC, effective after the 1947-48 academic year. * 1949 - Lewis & Clark re-joined back to the PNWC, effective in the 1949-50 academic year. * 1965 - Pacific Lutheran College (now Pacific Lutheran University) joined the PNWC, effective in the 1965-66 academic year. * 1970 -

Whitworth College Whitworth University is a Private university, private, Christianity, Christian university affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and located in Spokane, Washington. Founded in 1890, Whitworth enrolls nearly 3,000 students and offers more t ...

(now Whitworth University) joined the PNWC, effective in the 1970-71 academic year. * 1978 - The College of Idaho left the PNWC, effective after the 1977-78 academic year. * 1984 - Whitworth left the PNWC, effective after the 1983-84 academic year. * 1984 - The PNWC merged with the

Women's Conference of Independent Colleges The Northwest Conference (NWC) is an athletic conference which competes in the NCAA's Division III. Member teams are located in the states of Oregon and Washington. It was known as the Pacific Northwest Conference from 1926 to 1984. History ...

(WCIC) to become the Northwest Conference of Independent Colleges (NCIC), therefore adding women's sports in the conference, effective in the 1984-85 academic year. * 1988 - Whitworth re-joined back to the NCIC, effective in the 1988-89 academic year. * 1995 - George Fox College (now George Fox University) joined the NCIC, effective in the 1995-96 academic year. * 1996 - Puget Sound re-joined back to the NCIC, effective in the 1996-97 academic year. * 1996 - The NCIC has rebranded its name to become the Northwest Conference (NWC), effective in the 1996-97 academic year. * 1996 - The NWC has joined full membership in the

ranks of 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 an ...

(NCAA) after years spent in the

National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) established in 1940, is a college athletics association for colleges and universities in North America. Most colleges and universities in the NAIA offer athletic scholarships to its stu ...

(NAIA), effective in the 1996-97 academic year. * 1997 -

joined the NWC, effective in the 1997-98 academic year. * 1999 - Seattle left the NWC to join the

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 ...

ranks and the

Pacific West Conference The Pacific West Conference (also known as the PacWest) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. Member institutions are located in California and Hawaii. Th ...

(PacWest), effective after the 1998-99 academic year. * 2006 -

joined the NWC as an associate member for football, effective in the 2006 fall season (2006-07 academic year). * 2011 - Menlo left the NWC as an associate member for football, effective after the 2010 fall season (2010-11 academic year).

Member schools

Current members

The NWC currently has nine full members, all are

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

schools: ;Notes:

Former members

The NWC had two former full members, which both were

schools:

Former associate members

The NWC had one former associate member, which was also a

school: ;Notes:

Membership timeline

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1926 till:2026 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"<# 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:1926 till:1943 text:

(1926–1978) bar:1 color:OtherC1 from:1943 till:1946 bar:1 color:Full from:1946 till:1978 bar:2 color:Full from:1926 till:1937 text: Linfield (1926–present) bar:2 color:FullxF from:1937 till:1938 bar:2 color:Full from:1938 till:1943 bar:2 color:OtherC1 from:1943 till:1946 bar:2 color:Full from:1946 till:1985 bar:2 color:FullxF from:1985 till:1997 bar:2 color:Full from:1997 till:end bar:3 color:Full from:1926 till:1943 text: Pacific (Ore.) (1926–present) bar:3 color:OtherC1 from:1943 till:1946 bar:3 color:Full from:1946 till:1985 bar:3 color:FullxF from:1985 till:2010 bar:3 color:Full from:2010 till:end bar:4 color:Full from:1926 till:1943 text:

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected ma ...

(1926–1948) bar:4 color:OtherC1 from:1943 till:1946 bar:4 color:Full from:1946 till:1948 bar:4 color:FullxF from:1996 till:1997 text:(1996–present) bar:4 color:Full from:1997 till:end bar:5 color:Full from:1926 till:end text: Whitman (1926–present) bar:5 color:OtherC1 from:1943 till:1946 bar:5 color:Full from:1946 till:1977 bar:5 color:FullxF from:1977 till:end bar:6 color:Full from:1926 till:end text: Willamette (1926–present) bar:6 color:OtherC1 from:1943 till:1946 bar:6 color:Full from:1946 till:1985 bar:6 color:FullxF from:1985 till:1997 bar:6 color:Full from:1997 till:end bar:7 color:Full from:1931 till:1938 text: Lewis & Clark (1931–1938) bar:7 color:AssocF from:1946 till:1949 bar:7 color:Full from:1949 till:1985 text:(1949–present) bar:7 color:FullxF from:1985 till:1997 bar:7 color:Full from:1997 till:end bar:8 color:FullxF from:1965 till:1966 text: Pacific Lutheran (1965–present) bar:8 color:Full from:1966 till:1985 bar:8 color:FullxF from:1985 till:1997 bar:8 color:Full from:1997 till:end bar:9 color:FullxF from:1970 till:1972 text: Whitworth (1970–1984) bar:9 color:Full from:1972 till:1984 bar:9 color:FullxF from:1988 till:1997 text:(1988–present) bar:9 color:Full from:1997 till:end bar:10 color:FullxF from:1995 till:2014 text:

George Fox George Fox (July 1624 – 13 January 1691) was an English Dissenter, who was a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends. The son of a Leicestershire weaver, he lived in times of social upheaval and ...

(1995–present) bar:10 color:Full from:2014 till:end bar:11 color:FullxF from:1997 till:1999 text:

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

(1997–1999) bar:12 color:AssocF from:2006 till:2011 text: Menlo (2006–2011) bar:N color:green from:1926 till:1984 text:Pacific Northwest Conference (PNWC) bar:N color:blue from:1984 till:1996 text:NCIC bar:N color:green from:1996 till:end text:Northwest Conference (NWC) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:1926

Sports sponsored

The Northwest Conference sponsors championships in

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

, cross country,

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 ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

, and

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

All Sports Trophy

Each year the NWC awards one of its member institutions the NWC All Sports Trophy. In each sport the Conference Champion is awarded 18 points, second place is awarded 16 points, and so on. The school with the most points at the conclusion of the academic year wins the trophy. Football, women's volleyball, men's and women's cross country, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's swimming, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's tennis, men's and women's golf, men's baseball, women's softball, and men's and women's track and field are the 18 sports in which points are awarded. Most recently, Whitworth won the NWC All Sports Trophy for 2017-18, their twelfth overall and eleventh in a row. Pacific Lutheran has won the award 15 times, more than any other school. Linfield has won the trophy three times while Puget Sound has won it twice.

National championships

† - Whitworth was not a member of the NWC until 1970.

Football champions

*1926 –

*1927 – College of Idaho *1928 – Whitman *1929 – Willamette *1930 – Whitman *1931 – Whitman *1932 –

*1933 – Puget Sound *1934 – Willamette *1935 – Linfield and Willamette *1936 – Willamette *1937 – Willamette *1938 – Pacific (OR) and Willamette *1939 – Pacific *1940 – Willamette *1941 – Willamette *1942 – Willamette *1943 – ''No champion'' *1944 – ''No champion'' *1945 – ''No champion'' *1946 – Willamette *1947 – Willamette *1948 – College of Idaho *1949 – College of Idaho, Lewis & Clark, and Pacific (OR) *1950 – Lewis & Clark *1951 – Lewis & Clark and Pacific (OR) *1952 – Lewis & Clark and Pacific (OR) *1953 – College of Idaho *1954 – College of Idaho, Lewis & Clark, and Willamette *1955 – College of Idaho and Lewis & Clark *1956 – Linfield *1957 – Linfield *1958 – Willamette *1959 – Willamette *1960 – Willamette *1961 – Linfield *1962 – Linfield *1963 – Lewis & Clark *1964 – Linfield *1965 – Linfield *1966 – Lewis & Clark *1967 – Lewis & Clark, Linfield, and Willamette *1968 – Willamette *1969 – Lewis & Clark, Linfield, Pacific Lutheran, and Whitman *1970 – Linfield *1971 – Linfield *1972 – Linfield *1973 – Pacific Lutheran *1974 – Linfield *1975 – Linfield, Pacific Lutheran, and Whitworth (WA) *1976 – Linfield *1977 – Linfield *1978 – Linfield *1979 – Pacific Lutheran *1980 – Linfield *1981 – Pacific Lutheran *1982 – Linfield *1983 – Pacific Lutheran *1984 – Linfield

References

External links

* {{NCAA Division III football conference navbox