For the first time in 31 years, the West Coast Conference is set to add a new school. The Brigham Young University Cougars, currently of the Mountain West Conference, will join the WCC for the 2011-12 athletic season. BYU will bring over 12 sports teams: baseball, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's cross country, men's and women's golf, women's soccer, men's and women's tennis and women's volleyball.
"I'm excited about BYU joining the WCC," Gonzaga Athletic Director Mike Roth said in a press release. "Everybody that's been paying attention to the national landscape of intercollegiate athletics and what happened with the Big Ten and Pac-10 earlier this spring, and recently with BYU seriously considering going independent in football, meant their other sports had to land someplace. It's impossible to create an independent schedule in all of those sports."
The Cougars originally planned to join the Western Athletic Conference, but the move fell through when Fresno State and Nevada agreed to move from the WAC to the MWC for the 2012-13 season. With Boise State also leaving for the MWC in 2011-12, the WAC will eventually be left with six teams, which spells an uncertain future for the conference.
The WCC has not gained a team since the addition of Gonzaga and San Diego in 1979-80, and had remained unchanged since Seattle University left the conference in 1980.
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