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For the past 63 years, the Western Athletic Conference has set a standard of consistent competitive excellence in collegiate athletics. WAC member institutions have captured 35 NCAA team national championships, more than 220 individual national championships, countless All-America honors, and have prepared student-athletes for international competition on the world’s biggest stages.

Prior to the culmination of the current era of the conference in the summer of 2026, the WAC Flashback multi-part series will be released during the 2025-26 academic year. The series will feature some of the most memorable teams, legendary student-athletes and iconic moments in the rich history of the Western Athletic Conference.

The conference was officially formed on July 27, 1962, with charter members Arizona, Arizona State, Brigham Young, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming making up the inaugural WAC membership. Colorado State and UTEP became the first expansion additions to the WAC when they joined the conference in the fall of 1967 (UTEP) and fall of 1968 (Colorado State). In total, 43 different athletics programs hailing from 15 different states in the Central and Western United States have called the WAC home since the signing of the conference charter in the summer of 1962.

From 1963 through 1987 the WAC was represented by at least one athlete as an individual national champion every academic year. The first national championship in WAC history was captured by Arizona’s State’s Ulis Williams in the 400-meter dash at the 1963 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships. The most decorated Olympic sport athlete on the national stage while competing under the WAC banner was UTEP’s Suleiman Nyambui. Nyambui was a dynamic distance runner who won the 1980 NCAA DI Cross Country Championship individual crown, four one mile national titles (1979-82) and three 3000-meter national championships (1979-80, 82) at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships, and three 5000-meter championships (1980-82) and four 10000-meter national titles (1979-82) at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Nyambui also won a silver medal in the men’s 5000 at the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games representing his native Tanzania.

Just three academic years after the conference’s formation, the first team national championship for the WAC was earned by Arizona State baseball after a 2-1 victory over Ohio State to win the 1965 College World Series. It was the first of four baseball national titles for the Sun Devils as members of the conference. WAC baseball programs have won seven Men’s College World Series championships in 22 combined appearances in Omaha during the conference’s history. WAC members have added eight national cross country championships, two men’s golf national titles, an NCAA women’s gymnastics crown, a combined 15 track and field team national first-place finishes, one Women’s College World Series softball championship and one consensus football national championship.

The FBS football national title was earned by the 1984 BYU team that went a perfect 13-0, finishing as the only undefeated team in NCAA Division I-A following a 24-17 victory over Michigan in the Holiday Bowl. The Cougars were one of five WAC football teams to finish a season undefeated, joining the 1970 (11-0) and 1975 (12-0) Arizona State teams, and the 2006 (13-0) and 2009 (14-0) Boise State squads that both won Fiesta Bowl trophies to close their unbeaten seasons. BYU’s Ty Detmer captured the Heisman Trophy in 1990, and eventual College Football Hall of Fame and Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees Marshall Faulk from San Diego State and LaDainian Tomlinson from TCU also called the WAC home.

A landmark date that forever re-shaped the conference, July 1, 1990, saw the WAC merge with the High Country Athletic Conference to form a single conference hosting both men’s and women’s collegiate athletics. Not even two full years later, Utah captured the first women’s national championship in WAC history by winning the 1992 NCAA gymnastics national title. BYU later added a 1997 national championship in women’s cross country and Fresno State softball secured the most recent WAC women’s sport team national title after winning the 1998 Women’s College World Series.

The 1998 Fresno State softball squad was an impressive 28-2 in conference regular season play during its championship year, equaling the most league wins in a season in any WAC team sport in conference history. Laura Berg, who had previously won a gold medal with Team USA at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games and would go on to win three more gold medals in 2000, 2004 and 2008, Nina Lindenberg and Amanda Scott were each named First Team All-America in 1998 after guiding Fresno State to its third Women’s College World Series appearance since joining the WAC six seasons earlier. Fresno State standout pitcher Scott spun a three-hit shutout with no walks and six strikeouts to blank two-time defending national champion Arizona 1-0, clinching the first NCAA softball title for the Bulldogs and Most Outstanding Player honors for Scott.

WAC athletes have been prominently featured at the top of major professional league drafts dating back to the formation of the conference. More than 125 WAC athletes have been selected in the first round of major pro sports drafts since 1963, including five athletes who had the honor of being first overall draft picks; Arizona State baseball’s Rick Monday (1965, Monday was the first overall draft pick in the history of the debuting MLB First-Year Player Draft), Arizona State baseball’s Floyd Bannister (1976), Arizona State baseball’s Bob Horner (1978), Rice baseball’s Matt Anderson (1997) and Fresno State football’s David Carr (2002, Carr was the first collegiate draft pick in the history of the NFL’s most recent expansion team, the Houston Texans). 

Perhaps the most well-known professional athlete who competed in the WAC was not drafted until the third round of the 1981 MLB Draft. San Diego State baseball’s Tony Gwynn became a 15-time National League All-Star, eight-time National League batting champion and five-time Gold Glove winner in a 20-year career with the San Diego Padres, being elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame with 97.6 percent of the vote in 2007. Aside from his pro dominance on the baseball diamond, Gwynn’s 8.86 assists per game on the basketball court for San Diego State during the 1979-80 WAC conference season is still the best single season assists mark in league history to this day.

One WAC trailblazer did not even hear her name called on draft day, but that did not deter her path to continued post-collegiate greatness. Colorado State women’s basketball guard Becky Hammon was a three-time WAC Player of the Year (1996-97, 1997-98, 1998-99) and established a WAC basketball career record of 2,740 points that still stands. Hammon signed with the New York Liberty as an undrafted free agent in May of 1999, embarking on a 16-year WNBA career with the Liberty and the San Antonio Stars that included six All-Star Game selections, two All-WNBA First-Team accolades, two All-WNBA Second-Team honors and inclusion on the league’s 15th, 20th and 25th anniversary teams. Following her retirement as an active player in the summer of 2014, Hammon became the first full-time female assistant coach in NBA history when she joined the coaching staff of the reigning world champion San Antonio Spurs. After seven seasons with the Spurs, Hammon was hired as the head coach of the Las Vegas Aces (the former San Antonio Stars) in December of 2021. The Aces captured back-to-back WNBA titles in 2022 and 2023 in Hammon’s first two seasons at the helm, and won a third WNBA championship in 2025. In recognition of her contributions as a player and a coach, Hammon was inducted into the Naismath Basketball Hall of Fame in August of 2023.

Following a restructuring of conference membership at the conclusion of the 2012-13 academic year, the WAC saw the sport of football go on hiatus for eight years while it re-aligned its league membership with basketball and Olympic sports as its focus. Football officially made its return to the conference at the FCS level in 2021, as the WAC entered a scheduling alliance with the Atlantic Sun Conference in February of that year that provided the seven football institutions across both leagues with an opportunity to compete for an automatic NCAA FCS playoffs bid. Two years later that scheduling alliance transformed into the United Athletic Football Conference featuring the football playing members of the WAC and ASUN. Full WAC members Abilene Christian and Tarleton State competed in the 2024 NCAA FCS playoffs representing the UAC, with both teams advancing to the second round of the national tournament.

In a landmark agreement that was announced on June 26, 2025, the WAC and ASUN formed a strategic alliance that will serve both conferences through a consortium designed to significantly enhance operational efficiency, foster deeper collaboration and drive innovation across both NCAA DI organizations. As part of the consortium the WAC will officially rebrand as the United Athletic Conference prior to the 2026-27 academic year. The new-look UAC will continue sponsorship of football along with the sports of basketball, baseball, softball, women’s soccer, golf, tennis and cross country/track and field. The UAC will see membership additions of Austin Peay State University, the University of Central Arkansas, Eastern Kentucky University, the University of North Alabama and the University of West Georgia in July of 2026.

WAC FLASHBACK - WOMEN'S SOCCER 




WAC FLASHBACK - WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL




WAC FLASHBACK - MEN'S SOCCER




WAC FLASHBACK - MEN'S CROSS COUNTRY




WAC FLASHBACK - WOMEN'S CROSS COUNTRY