Northwest Athletic Conference
| Northwest Athletic Conference (NWAC) |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Established | 1946 |
| Association | None |
| Members | 36 |
| Sports fielded | 15 (men's: 7; women's: 8) |
| Region | Pacific Northwest |
| Former names | Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges |
| Headquarters | Vancouver, Washington |
| Commissioner | Marco Azurdia |
| Website | nwacsports.com |
The Northwest Athletic Conference (NWAC), formerly called the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges or NWAACC for short, is a sports association for community colleges in the United States states of Oregon and Washington, and the Canadian province of British Columbia.
The NWAC ("En-Wack") was originally formed in 1946 as the Washington State Junior College Athletic Conference (WSJCAC). In 1961, the state Legislature removed a legal roadblock that had barred the establishment of junior colleges in counties with four-year colleges. After the Legislature took action, the number of schools in the WAACC nearly doubled. Three years later, the conference was renamed the Washington Athletic Association of Community Colleges (WAACC).
In 1970 the conference admitted its first non-Washington member, Mt. Hood Community College of Gresham, Oregon, which had left the Oregon Community College Athletic Association (OCCAA). At that time, the WAACC became the Northwest AACC, reflecting its two-state membership.
The NWAACC merged with its Oregon counterpart in 1983, resulting in a 26-member circuit stretching from southwestern Oregon to the Canada–US border.
On July 1, 2014, the conference announced that they were becoming the Northwest Athletic Conference.
The NWAC, now with 36 members, is the largest community college conference in the United States. It is not affiliated with the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA), but acknowledges on the NWAC website athletes representing conference schools in the NJCAA wrestling tournament.
1946: WSJCAC is Born
Although athletic competition between junior colleges existed in the 1930s, the first structured league and championship events in men's sports came in 1946 when the Washington State Junior College Athletic Conference (WSJCAC) was formed. Following the nine charter members, Columbia Basin College joined in 1955.
Initially, the conference offered football, basketball, baseball, tennis, track and golf. In 1963 wrestling was added, followed by cross country in 1965 and soccer in 1974.
The WSJCAC existed without bylaws until the spring of 1948, when Executive Secretary Jim Ennis of Everett JC, Dave DuVall of Skagit Valley and Maury Phipps of Grays Harbor, wrote the conference's original constitution. The document set forth the overall philosophy of the conference's athletic program, and prescribed scholarship limits and grade eligibility requirements.
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