Pacific Coast Conference

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Pacific Coast Conference
AssociationNCAA
FoundedDecember 2, 1915
CeasedJune 30, 1959
No. of teams9 (final), 10 (total)
RegionPacific Coast,
Mountain States
Locations
Location of teams in {{{title}}}

The Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) was a college athletic conference in the United States which existed from 1915 to 1959. Though the Pac-12 Conference claims the PCC's history as part of its own, with eight of the ten PCC members (including all four original PCC charter members) now in the Pac-12, the older league had a completely different charter and was disbanded in 1959 due to a major crisis and scandal.

Established on December 2, 1915,[1] its four charter members were the University of California (now University of California, Berkeley), the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, and Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University).

Conference members[edit]

Membership timeline[edit]

University of California, Los AngelesUniversity of MontanaUniversity of IdahoUniversity of Southern CaliforniaStanford UniversityWashington State UniversityOregon State UniversityUniversity of OregonUniversity of WashingtonUniversity of California, Berkeley

 Full members 
 Independent 
 Athletic Association of Western Universities members 
 Pacific-8 members 

Before the crisis[edit]

Rivalries between the Pacific Coast Conference schools grew beyond athletics, with animosities around educational, financial and state rivalries. The tensions between the California and Northwest schools extended to Edwin Pauley, a regent of the University of California, disliking the member universities in the Pacific Northwest enough to advocate that the California institutions leave the Pacific Coast Conference to form a "California Conference."

The PCC had a history of being very strict with regards to its standards; it suspended the University of Southern California from the conference in 1924, performed a critical self-study in 1932, and a voluminous two-million-word report was compiled by Edwin Atherton in 1939. The PCC had a paid commissioner, an elaborate constitution, a formal code of conduct, and a system for reporting student-athlete eligibility. Following the submission of his report, Atherton was promptly hired as commissioner in 1940,[2] and served until his death four years later,[3] He was succeeded by his assistant, Victor O. Schmidt.[4]

Montana departed the conference in 1951 to join the Skyline Eight.[5]

The conference was wracked by scandal in 1951. Charges were made and confirmed that University of Oregon football coach Jim Aiken had violated the conference code for financial aid and athletic subsidies. After Aiken was compelled to resign, Oregon urged the PCC to look at similar abuses by UCLA football coach Red Sanders. The conference spent five years attempting to reform itself. In 1956, the scandal became public.

The crisis[edit]

The scandal first broke at Washington, when in January 1956, several discontented players staged a mutiny against their football coach, John Cherberg. After the coach was fired, the PCC followed up on charges of a slush fund. The PCC found evidence of the prohibited activities of the Greater Washington Advertising Fund run by Roscoe C. "Torchy" Torrance, and in May imposed sanctions.[6]

In March, allegations of prohibited payments made by two booster clubs associated with UCLA, the Bruin Bench and the Young Men's Club of Westwood, were published in Los Angeles newspapers.[6] UCLA refused for ten weeks to allow PCC officials to proceed in their investigation. Finally, UCLA admitted that, "all members of the football coaching staff had, for several years, known of the unsanctioned payments to student athletes and had cooperated with the booster club members or officers, who actually administered the program by actually referring student athletes to them for such aid." The scandal thickened as a UCLA alumnus and member of the UCLA athletic advisory board blew the whistle on a secret fund for payments in violation of PCC rules to University of Southern California players, known as the Southern California Educational Foundation.[7] This same alumnus also blew the whistle on Cal's phony work program for athletes known as the San Francisco Gridiron Club, with an extension in the Los Angeles area known as the South Seas Fund.[7]

In 1957, the conference fired Vic Schmidt, the commissioner. He had been tasked with cleaning up the conference, and had imposed sanctions on UCLA, including suspending athletes and prohibiting participation in the Rose Bowl for three years.[7]

Aftershocks and disbandment[edit]

The first major reaction came from the University of California system. Robert Sproul, president of the University of California, along with the chancellors of Berkeley and UCLA, drafted a "Five Point Plan", emphasizing academic eligibility standards, setting the two UC campuses apart from the PCC and laying the groundwork for their departure.[6] For Sproul the PCC dispute was not just about athletics; at stake was the ideal of a unified University of California that enjoyed statewide support. This ideal collided with aspirations of UCLA alumni who believed that Sproul's vision would always favor the Berkeley campus at the expense of the younger UCLA campus.

Oregon State College president August Leroy Strand wrote, "The reasons for California and UCLA dropping out are as different as night and day... the significance of the whole affair was the union of Berkeley and UCLA... admissions and scholarship had nothing to do with the withdrawals . . . the marriage of this desire on the part of Berkeley with the known ambitions and necessities of its sister institution has produced a bastard that has the bark of a purebred but the innards and hair of a mongrel."

The PCC was falling apart, leading to the decision to dissolve after the 1958–59 season.

The PCC scandal was one of several problems during the chancellorship of Raymond B. Allen at UCLA that caused him to fall out of favor with the Regents of the University of California. Allen was widely expected to become the next UC President, but instead, in October 1957, UC Berkeley Chancellor Clark Kerr was the Regents' unanimous choice to succeed Sproul.[8]

New conference (AAWU)[edit]

Soon after the PCC was dissolved, five of its nine members (California, Washington, UCLA, Southern California, and Stanford) created the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU) for the 1959 season. While the AAWU did not negotiate an agreement with the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association to have a standing contractual invitation to the Rose Bowl Game until the following year, the Tournament of Roses did choose to invite the AAWU's inaugural regular season champion to the first post-PCC Rose Bowl.

After initially being blocked from admission, three of the four remaining schools would eventually join (Washington State in 1962, Oregon and Oregon State in 1964), but members were not required to play other members. Tensions were high between UCLA and Stanford, as Stanford had voted for UCLA's expulsion from the PCC.

Idaho was not involved in the scandals but had become noncompetitive in the PCC. Unlike Washington State, Oregon, and Oregon State, Idaho did not pursue AAWU admission, and competed as an independent before becoming a charter member of the Big Sky Conference in 1963. Idaho retains no strong connections to its PCC past other than a continuing rivalry with Washington State; the two land grant campuses are just eight miles (13 km) apart in the Palouse region.

The AAWU eventually strengthened its bonds and added members, renaming itself the Pacific-8 Conference (Pac-8) in 1968. By 1971, most Pac-8 schools played round-robin conference football schedules, and the two Oregon schools were again playing USC and UCLA on a regular basis. The conference added WAC powers Arizona and Arizona State in 1978 and became the Pacific-10 Conference (Pac-10). On July 1, 2011, the conference added Colorado from the Big 12 and Utah from the Mountain West (also a former WAC member) and became the Pac-12. The Pac-12 claims the PCC's history as its own, though it operates under a separate charter.

Conference champions[edit]

The official record book of conference champions was compiled by the then acting commissioner Bernie Hammerbeck in 1959.[9]

Men's basketball[edit]

The Pacific Coast Conference began playing basketball in the 1915–16 season. The PCC adopted a divisional format for basketball beginning with the 1922–23 season. The California schools formed the Southern Division, while the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain schools formed the North Division. The winners of the two divisions played a best of three series to determine the PCC basketball champion. If two division teams tied, they had a one-game playoff to produce the division representative. Starting with the first NCAA tournament in 1939, the winner of the PCC divisional playoff was given the automatic berth in the NCAA tournament. Oregon, the PCC champion that season, won the first NCAA title game.

The last divisional playoff was in the 1954–55 season. After that, all teams played each other in a round robin competition. From the 1955–56 season through the 1958–59 season, the regular season conference champion was awarded the NCAA tournament berth from the PCC. In the case of a tie, a tie breaker rule was used to determine the NCAA tournament representative.

Season Conference Champion (#) Playoff Runner-up
1915–16 California (1)
Oregon State (1)
none
1916–17 Washington State (1)
1918–19 Oregon (1)
1919–20 Stanford (1)
1920–21 California (2)
Stanford (2)
1921–22 Idaho (1)
1922–23 Idaho (2) California
1923–24 California (3) Washington
1924–25 California (4) Oregon State
1925–26 California (5) Oregon
1926–27 California (6) Oregon
1927–28 USC (1) Washington
1928–29 California (7) Washington
1929–30 USC (2) Washington
1930–31 Washington (1) California
1931–32 California (8) Washington
1932–33 Oregon State (2) USC
1933–34 Washington (2) USC
1934–35 USC (3) Oregon State
1935–36 Stanford (3) Washington
1936–37 Stanford (4) Washington State
1937–38 Stanford (5) Oregon
1938–39 Oregon (2) California
1939–40 USC (4) Oregon State
1940–41 Washington State (2) Stanford
1941–42 Stanford (6) Oregon State
1942–43 Washington (3) USC
1943–44 California (9)
Washington (4)
none
1944–45 Oregon (3)
UCLA (1)
1945–46 California (10) Idaho
1946–47 Oregon State (3) UCLA
1947–48 Washington (5) California
1948–49 Oregon State (4) UCLA
1949–50 UCLA (2) Washington State
1950–51 Washington (6) UCLA
1951–52 UCLA (3) Washington
1952–53 Washington (7) California
1953–54 USC (5) Oregon State
1954–55 Oregon State (5) UCLA
1955–56 UCLA (4) none
1956–57 California (11)
1957–58 California (12)
Oregon State (6)
1958–59 California (13)

Football[edit]

Conference Overall
Season Champion(s) W L T  Pts  Opp W L T
1916 Oregon ^ 2 0 1 33 20 6 0 1
Washington 3 0 1 62 10 6 0 1
1917 Washington State 3 0 0 46 3 6 0 0
1918 California 2 0 0 72 0 7 2 0
1919 Oregon ^ (2) 2 1 0 33 20 5 1 3
Washington (2) 2 1 0 33 31 5 1 0
1920 California (2) 3 0 0 104 7 9 0 0
1921 California (3) 4 0 0 167 10 9 0 1
1922 California (4) 4 0 0 146 7 9 0 0
1923 California (5) 5 0 0 66 7 9 0 1
1924 Stanford 3 0 1 92 36 7 1 1
1925 Washington (3) 5 0 0 88 24 10 1 1
1926 Stanford (2) 4 0 0 112 40 10 0 1
1927 Stanford ^ (3) 4 0 1 78 32 8 2 1
USC 4 0 1 99 38 8 1 1
Idaho 2 0 2 61 20 4 1 3
1928 USC (2) 4 0 1 84 20 9 0 1
1929 USC (3) 6 1 0 258 29 10 2 0
1930 Washington State (2) 6 0 0 134 20 9 1 0
1931 USC (4) 7 0 0 259 13 10 1 0
1932 USC (5) 6 0 0 112 13 10 0 0
1933 Oregon (3) 4 1 0 45 29 9 1 0
Stanford ^ (4) 4 1 0 56 23 8 2 1
1934 Stanford (5) 5 0 0 93 7 9 1 1
1935 California (6) 4 1 0 55 22 9 1 0
Stanford ^ (6) 4 1 0 60 7 8 1 0
UCLA 4 1 0 75 39 8 2 0
1936 Washington (4) 7 0 1 141 21 7 2 1
1937 California (7) 6 0 1 137 26 10 0 1
1938 California (8) 6 1 0 107 37 10 1 0
USC ^ (6) 6 1 0 131 36 9 2 0
1939 USC (7) 5 0 2 121 21 8 0 2
1940 Stanford (7) 7 0 0 141 66 10 0 0
1941 Oregon State 7 2 0 123 33 8 2 0
1942 UCLA (2) 6 1 0 146 58 7 4 0
1943 USC (8) 5 0 0 95 13 8 2 0
1944 USC (9) 3 0 2 129 39 8 0 2
1945 USC (10) 5 1 0 107 43 7 4 0
1946 UCLA (3) 7 0 0 216 45 10 1 0
1947 USC (11) 6 0 0 147 20 7 2 1
1948 California ^ (9) 6 0 0 155 40 10 1 0
Oregon (4) 7 0 0 125 48 9 2 0
1949 California (10) 7 0 0 220 80 10 1 0
1950 California (11) 5 0 1 124 28 9 1 1
1951 Stanford (8) 6 1 0 152 101 9 2 0
1952 USC (12) 6 0 0 174 32 10 1 0
1953 UCLA (4) 6 1 0 172 41 8 2 0
1954 UCLA (5) 6 0 0 256 26 9 0 0
1955 UCLA (6) 6 0 0 197 37 9 2 0
1956 Oregon State (2) 6 1 1 152 104 7 3 1
1957 Oregon State (3) 6 2 0 147 110 8 2 0
Oregon ^ (5) 6 2 0 124 81 7 4 0
1958 California (12) 6 1 0 127 85 7 4 0

^ Denotes PCC representative in Rose Bowl for shared conference championships

Baseball[edit]

The PCC adopted a divisional format for baseball in 1923, with the same alignment that it used for basketball. Briefly, the conference also included the St. Mary's Gaels.

Season Conference
1916 CAL
1917 CAL
1918 ORE
1919 WASH
1920 CAL
1921 CAL
1922 WASH
Season North South
1923 WASH CAL
Season Conference
1924 CAL
Season North South
1925 WASH STAN
1926 WASH CAL
Season North CIBA
1927 WSU STM
1928 ORE/WSU STM
1929 WASH CAL
1930 WASH USC
1931 WASH STAN
1932 WASH USC
1933 WSU CAL
1934 ORE CAL
1935 ORE CAL/USC
1936 WSU USC
1937 ORE CAL
1938 OSU/WSU CAL
1939 ORE USC/STM
1940 OSU STM
1941 ORE CAL/STM
1942 ORE USC
1943 ORE/OSU **CAL/USC
1944 WSU UCLA
1945 WSU CAL
1946 ORE USC
1947 WSU CAL/USC
1948 WSU USC*
1949 WSU USC*
1950 WSU* STAN
1951 OSU USC*
1952 OSU* USC
1953 ORE STAN*
1954 ORE* USC
1955 ORE USC*
1956 WSU* USC
1957 ORE CAL*/USC
1958 OSU USC*
1959 WASH USC*

*denotes Pacific Coast Conference playoff champion
**California won the CIBA Division 1 and USC won CIBA Division 2. California won the whole division title by beating USC in the CIBA playoff

  • Bold indicates National Champion

Commissioners[edit]

  • Herb Dana, 193x–1940
  • Edwin N. Atherton, 1940–1944
  • Victor O. Schmidt, 1944–1959
  • Bernie Hammerbeck (acting), 1959

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ (Portland) Oregon Daily Journal. December 3, 1915. "Four Colleges Form Coast Conference at Very Secret Session"
  2. ^ "Coast colleges name Atherton boss". Spokesman-Review. Associated Press. January 6, 1940. p. 10.
  3. ^ "Edwin Atherton, Coast football czar, dies". Berkeley Daily Gazette. United Press. September 1, 1944. p. 11.
  4. ^ "Coast schools appoint new commissioner". Milwaukee Journal. Associated Press. September 2, 1944. p. 2, part 2. Archived from the original on November 18, 2015. Retrieved November 17, 2015.
  5. ^ "Montana Accepted As Member of Skyline Eight". Independent Record. Helena, Montana. AP. June 11, 1950. p. 12. Retrieved January 5, 2020 – via newspapers.com.
  6. ^ a b c John R. Thelin (18 November 1996). Games Colleges Play: Scandal and Reform in Intercollegiate Athletics. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-1-4214-0391-5.
  7. ^ a b c Ronald Austin Smith; Ronald A. Smith (2011). Pay for Play: A History of Big-Time College Athletic Reform. University of Illinois Press. pp. 125–. ISBN 978-0-252-03587-6.
  8. ^ Kerr, Clark (2001). The Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California, 1949–1967, Volume 1. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 154–155. ISBN 9780520223677. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
  9. ^ "When the Pacific Coast Conference was dissolved". Eugene Register-Guard. 2 March 1960. Retrieved 13 October 2013.