Pac-12 Conference
| Pac-12 Conference | |
|---|---|
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| Established | 1959 1915 (as Pacific Coast Conference) |
| Association | NCAA |
| Division | Division I FBS |
| Members | 12 |
| Sports fielded | 23 (men's: 11; women's: 12) |
| Region | |
| Former names | Pacific Coast Conference (PCC, 1915–1959) Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU, 1959–68) Pacific-8 (1968–78) Pacific-10 (1978–2011) |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California |
| Commissioner | Larry Scott (since 2009) |
| Website | www |
| Locations | |
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The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that operates in the Western United States. It participates in 22 NCAA sports in the NCAA's Division I; its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Division I-A), the higher of two levels of NCAA Division I football competition. The conference's 12 members are located in Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. They include each state's flagship public university, four additional public universities, and two private research universities. The conference was created after the disbanding of the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC), whose principal members founded the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU) in 1959, and went by the names Big Five, Big Six, Pacific-8, Pacific-10. It became the Pac-12 in 2011 with the addition of the University of Colorado and the University of Utah.
Nicknamed the "Conference of Champions," the Pac-12 has won more NCAA National Team Championships than any other conference in history; the three schools with the most NCAA team championships belong to the Pac-12 (UCLA, Stanford, and USC, in that order). With Arizona State's softball title in 2011, the conference won its 400th NCAA Championship.
The current commissioner of the conference is Larry Scott; Scott replaced Thomas C. Hansen, who retired in July 2009 after 26 years in that position. Prior to joining the Pac-10, Scott was Chairman and CEO of the Women's Tennis Association.
The Pac-12 has twelve full member institutions. Football currently is the only sport where the conference is divided evenly into two geographic divisions, the North Division and the South Division. The Pac-12 spans six states in the Western United States: Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.
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