Pacific Coast Athletic Conference (CCCAA)

The Pacific Coast Athletic Conference (PCAC) is a college athletic conference that is affiliated with the California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) and includes community colleges in the San Diego region of California. It should not be confused with the former NCAA Division I Pacific Coast Athletic Conference that was a precursor to the current Big West Conference. The PCAC has won numerous state championships in the CCCAA.

In California, following World War II, several new colleges were opened causing many new Conference alignments. In San Diego County, the first college involved in athletics was San Diego City College in the 1920s. Oceanside/Carlsbad (MiraCosta College) began in 1934. In 1962, Imperial Valley College opened their new college campus. Starting in the 1920s, there were community colleges operating in El Centro and Brawley. Palomar College began in 1946. In 1961, Southwestern and Grossmont colleges opened, and in 1964, San Diego Mesa College opened.

During these years, a second issue causing conferencing changes was the varying size of colleges. To be immediately eligible for athletics, an athlete needed to have been a local high school graduate. This caused great difficulty in finding realistic levels of competition for smaller colleges who, for the most part, were geographically isolated. The state designated conferences by small colleges or large colleges with separate play-off structures. When the small college designation was dropped, it motivated the forming of separate conferences for football only and using geographic consideration for all other sports.

The Pacific Coast Conference was first organized in 1982-83 with the following memberships: Grossmont, Imperial Valley, MiraCosta, Palomar, Saddleback, San Diego City, San Diego Mesa, and Southwestern Colleges. In 1994-95, Saddleback left the Conference and joined the Orange Empire Conference. In 1987, Cuyamaca College, a second campus in the Grossmont District, became a member. Prior to 1982, the Conference colleges belonged to several different conferences. San Diego City College, and later San Diego Mesa College, belonged to the Metropolitan Conference. Imperial Valley College and Oceanside Junior College, now MiraCosta College, were in the Desert Conference, and later with Palomar and Southwestern Colleges in the South Central Conference. In 1962-1964, Grossmont and Southwestern Colleges were in the Eastern Conference.

...
Wikipedia