The Golden Coast Conference (GCC) is a collegiate

athletic conference An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other in a sports league. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels. Confe ...

in the United States in which its members compete in 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 ...

National Collegiate (D-NC) division. The conference sponsors one sport,

water polo Water polo is a competitive team sport played in water between two teams of seven players each. The game consists of four quarters in which the teams attempt to score goals by throwing the ball into the opposing team's goal. The team with the ...

, and was founded in 2013 fielding women's teams. A men's division was added for Fall 2016.

History

Founding

Founded in 2013, the Golden Coast Conference originally started as a women's only conference in NCAA water polo. Mike Daniels, the commissioner of the

Golden State Athletic Conference The Golden State Athletic Conference (GSAC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). The conference commissioner is Mike Daniels. Conference leadership is shared among the membe ...

, was named as the league's first commissioner in October 2013 and held both roles simultaneously. The

awarded Division I status to the conference effective August 1, 2013. GCC founding members were

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and University of the Pacific. The first season of play was in Spring 2014, although the league did not qualify for an automatic bid to the

NCAA Women's Water Polo Championship 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 Conferen ...

. The Spring 2016 season marked the first time the conference had an automatic bid to the

with the inaugural honors going to San Diego State.

Introduction of men's division

Fall 2016 saw the introduction of a men's competition as the non-

Pac-12 Conference The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...

members playing water polo within the

Mountain Pacific Sports Federation 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 ...

totaled six, the required number for a new conference.

California State University, Long Beach California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) is a public research university in Long Beach, California. The 322-acre campus is the second largest of the 23-school California State University system (CSU) and one of the largest universities i ...

Pepperdine University Pepperdine University () is a private research university affiliated with the Churches of Christ with its main campus in Los Angeles County, California. Pepperdine's main campus consists of 830 acres (340 ha) overlooking the Pacific Ocean and t ...

San Jose State University San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a public university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the oldest public university on the West Coast and the founding campus of the California State University (CSU) sys ...

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

, and University of the Pacific broke away from the MPSF to create the men's division of the Golden Coast Conference. The splintering caused the MPSF's membership to drop to 4 teams. The effects of the split were felt across the country and resulted in a major realignment of the

Collegiate Water Polo Association The Collegiate Water Polo Association is a conference of colleges and universities in the Eastern United States that sponsor 19 men's teams and 17 women's teams that compete in varsity water polo. The winners of the conference tournaments earn one ...

Members

Departing members are highlighted in pink.

Men

Women

Former members

References

External links

*{{Official website, http://www.gccwaterpolo.com Sports leagues established in 2013 Women's sports organizations in the United States NCAA Division I conferences College water polo in the United States 2013 establishments in California