Mountain West Conference (MWC)
Established: 1999
NCAA	Division I FBS
Members	9
Sports fielded	17 (men's: 8; women's: 9)
Region	Western United States
Headquarters	Colorado Springs, Colorado
Commissioner	Craig Thompson (since 1999)
Website	http://themwc.com/
Locations

The Mountain West Conference (or MWC), the youngest of the college athletic conferences affiliated with the NCAA’s Division I FBS (I-A), officially began operations in July 1999. Geographically, the MWC covers a broad expanse of the western United States, with member institutions located in California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. Craig Thompson has served as Commissioner of the MWC since its founding in 1999.

Charter members included Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, UNLV, Utah, and Wyoming. Before forming the Mountain West Conference, seven of the eight charter members had been longtime members of the Western Athletic Conference; half were WAC charter members at its formation in 1962 - UNLV had only joined the WAC in 1996.

The WAC expanded from 10 to 16 universities in 1996, absorbing three teams from the defunct Southwest Conference (Rice, SMU, and TCU), adding two from the Big West (San Jose State and UNLV), and Tulsa from the Missouri Valley. After three football seasons, most of the pre-expansion members decided the that the new WAC was oversized, and departed to form the Mountain West Conference. The MWC added a ninth team in 2005: TCU, also a former WAC member, which joined after four seasons in Conference USA.

A lesser known "Mountain West Athletic Conference" existed from 1982-88, sponsoring championships for women’s sports at Big Sky Conference institutions. The Big Sky absorbed the MWAC in 1988, forming one league for both men's and women's competition.

[edit] Members

Locations of current Mountain West Conference full member institutions.

[edit] Potential expansion

Boise radio station KBOI reported on Tuesday Nov. 11, 2008 that Western Athletic Conference member Boise State president Bob Kustra received a letter from the Mountain West Conference with an invitation to join the league. Despite the popularity of potential expansion among fans and reporters, this report, also reported on the Boise newspaper website IdahoStatesman.com, has been denied.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Sports

The MWC sponsors championships in baseball, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's golf, women's soccer, swimming and diving, men's and women's tennis, women's volleyball, football, softball,indoor and outdoor track and cross country. Many of its member schools participate in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation for sports not sponsored by the Mountain West Conference. Two MWC schools have unique affiliations in men's soccer as San Diego State competes as a member of the Pacific-10 Conference, while BYU has completely abandoned the collegiate competitive structure in that sport, opting instead to field a semi-professional team in the USL Premier Development League.

Starting with the 2009-10 season, the Mountain West and Missouri Valley Conferences will hold an annual challenge series between all nine members of the MWC and nine of the ten MVC teams. The first game will be on November 13 between the Bradley Braves and the BYU Cougars in Provo and concluding on December 23 with the Wyoming Cowboys visiting the Northern Iowa Panthers in Cedar Falls, IA. The challenge is similar to the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, which pits men's basketball teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big Ten Conference.^[1]

[edit] Television network

See article MountainWest Sports Network

[edit] Conference Champions

[edit] Men's Championship Winners

Source:^[2]

[edit] Women's Championship Winners

Source:^[2]

[edit] Football Rivalries

[edit] Conference

Since TCU joined the conference in 2005, BYU and TCU have started developing a heated rivalry. For at least the 2008 and 2009 seasons, TCU placed a BYU helmet on their tackling dummy. ^[3]

[edit] Non-Conference

[edit] Postseason Records

[edit] Conference Facilities

[edit] Elevation

The Mountain West's slogan is "Above the rest," and most member institutions are above 4,000 feet in elevation. This impacts endurance in sports like football and soccer, and aerodynamics in baseball, softball, basketball and golf. The MWC's institutions have the highest average elevation in NCAA Division I sports.

[edit] See also

• Mountain West Conference Men's Basketball Tournament
• Mountain West Conference Women's Basketball Tournament
• Mountain West Conference Baseball Tournament

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official Athletic Site of the Mountain West Conference
• Largest MWC Fan Forum
• The Big Podcast: A Quality Mountain West Conference Blog