Pac 10
It participates 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 ten members (which are primarily flagship research universities in their respective regions, well-regarded academically, and with relatively large student enrollment) compete in 22 NCAA sports.
It was founded as the Athletic Association of Western Universities or AAWU in 1959, and went by the names Big Five, Big Six, and Pacific 8 before becoming the Pacific 10 in 1978. Charter members were the University of California (now University of California, Berkeley), the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, and Oregon State College (now Oregon State University).
The conference began play in 1916.
One year later, Washington State College (now Washington State University) joined the league, followed by Stanford University in 1918.
In 1922, the PCC expanded to eight teams with the admission of USC and Idaho. Montana joined the Conference in 1924, and in 1928, the PCC grew to 10 members with the addition of UCLA.
For many years, the conference split into two divisions for basketball -- a Southern Division comprising the four California schools and a Northern Division comprising the six schools in the Pacific Northwest.
In 1950, Montana departed to join the Mountain States Conference.
The PCC continued as a nine-team league through 1958.
AAWU (Big Five and Big Six)
Following a "pay-for-play" scandal at several PCC institutions (specifically Cal, USC, UCLA and Washington), the PCC disbanded in 1959. When Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC, and Washington started talking about forming a new conference, retired Admiral Thomas J.
Hamilton interceded and suggested the schools consider creating a "power conference." Nicknamed the "Airplane Conference", the five PCC schools would've played with other big schools including Army, Navy, Air Force, Notre Dame, Penn, Penn State, Duke, and Georgia Tech among others. The effort fell through when a Pentagon official vetoed the idea and the service academies backed out.
On July 1, 1959 the Athletic Association of Western Universities was formed, with Cal, Stanford, UCLA, USC, and Washington as charter members.
The conference also was popularly known as the Big Five from 1960-1962 Washington State University joined in 1962. The conference was then known as the Big Six.
Pacific-8
The University of Oregon and Oregon State University joined in 1964.
Idaho was not invited to join the AAWU and played as an independent until the formation of the Big Sky Conference in 1963.
In 1968, the AAWU renamed itself the Pacific-8 Conference, or Pac-8 for short.
Pacific-10
In 1978, the conference added WAC powers Arizona and Arizona State, creating the Pacific-10 conference or Pac-10 in its current form.
The Pac-10 claims the PCC's history as its own. It inherited the PCC's berth in the Rose Bowl, and the eight largest schools in the old PCC all eventually joined the new league.
However, the older league had a separate charter.
The Pac-10 is one of the founding members of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, a conference organized to provide competition in non-revenue Olympic sports. All Pac-10 members participate in at least one MPSF sport, and for certain sports, the Pac-10 admits certain schools as Associate Members (which currently are San Diego State for men's soccer, and UC Davis, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Boise State, Cal State Fullerton, Portland State, and Cal State Bakersfield for wrestling).
The conference expressed interest in admitting Texas after the collapse of the Southwest Conference.
Texas expressed an interest in joining a strong academic conference, but joined three fellow SWC schools in forming the Big 12 Conference in 1996.
Of Division I conferences, only the Ivy League has maintained its current membership for a longer time than the Pac-10.
Pac-10 football rivalries
Big Game, 2004 between Cal and Stanford
The Pac-10 is an anomaly in college sports, in that each school within the conference has its own in-state, conference rivalry. One is an intracity rivalry (UCLA-USC), and another is within the same metropolitan area (Cal-Stanford).
These rivalries (and the name given to the football forms) are:
Cal-Stanford (The Big Game, winner gets the Stanford Axe). Notable history include The Play
Arizona-Arizona State (The Duel in the Desert, winner gets the Territorial Cup)
Washington-Washington State (winner gets the Apple Cup), notable history includes the Snow Bowl
Oregon-Oregon State rivalry (The Civil War, winner gets the Platypus Trophy).
UCLA-USC rivalry (winner gets the Victory Bell)
There are other notable football rivalries within the Pac-10 conference.
All of the California schools consider each other major rivals, due to the culture clash between Northern and Southern California.
Cal and UCLA have a rivalry rooted in their shared history as the top programs within the University of California system. They played for the Kit Carson Rifle trophy, which was no longer used starting with their meeting in the 1997 Insight Bowl.
USC and Notre Dame have an intersectional rivalry (See Notre Dame-USC rivalry).
Previously, the schools did not play one non-rival opponent, resulting in an eight-game conference schedule (4 home games and 4 away).
Rivalries in other sports
All of the intra-conference rivalries in football are carried over into other sports. However, over the years UCLA and Arizona have developed a primarily basketball rivalry between the two schools because both teams have historically dominated the conference.
In the last few years, Stanford's success has also led to a rivalry with Arizona, which peaked in 2000 with both receiving #1 seeds in the NCAA tournament. In addition, certain nonconference rivalries have developed in other sports.
During the 1970s, UCLA and Notre Dame had an intense men's basketball rivalry.
For several years, it was the only nonconference game in Division I basketball that was played twice a season (home-and-home). Unquestionably, the most famous game in the rivalry was on January 19, 1974, when Notre Dame scored the last 12 points of the game to nip UCLA and end the Bruins' record 88-game winning streak.
Arizona, Arizona State, USC and UCLA have long and successful histories in baseball and all have won national titles in the sport. Arizona State swept the series and in the final game a bench clearing brawl spread quickly to the stands and made national headlines.
Several were injured and riot police were called to end the fracas.
Washington and California have a longstanding rivalry in men's crew as the two traditionally dominant programs on the West Coast.
The campuses of Washington State University and the University of Idaho are eight miles apart, creating a natural border war. Two nights later the teams switched and USC played Arizona State and UCLA played Arizona.
The teams are paired as followed: USC and UCLA (the L.A. The PCC was split into North and South Divisions for basketball beginning with the 1922-23 season.
Oregon, the 1939 PCC champion, won the championship game in the 1939 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament.
The last divisional playoff was in the 1954-55 season. After that, there was no divisional play and all teams played each other in a round robin competition.
From the 1955-56 season through the 1958-59 season, the regular season conference champion was awarded the NCAA tournament berth from the PCC. In the case of a tie, a tie breaker rule was used to determine the NCAA tournament representative.
Beginning with the 1975 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament, the Pac-10 would usually place at least one other at-large team in the tournament.
By the 1985-86 season, the Pac-10 was one of three remaining conferences that gave their automatic NCAA tournament bid to the regular season round-robin champion.