Seattle University’s return to the West Coast Conference, which becomes official today, may not have been inevitable but it’s been a goal of the Redhawks since they moved back to Division I status for the 2009-10 academic year.
Actually, it’s been the goal.
“That was the assumption. We left the West Coast Conference when we left Division I,” Seattle U President Eduardo Peñalver said, referring to the university’s departure after membership from 1971-72 through ’79-80. “And when we rejoined Division I, everyone just assumed we would be rejoining the West Coast Conference. It just took a little longer.”
For the Redhawks, who were a Division I independent for three seasons before joining the Western Athletic Conference in 2012, patience has paid off. “Joining the West Coast Conference is a long sought-after goal,” said Shaney Fink, Seattle’s vice president for athletics.
West Coast Conference Commissioner Stu Jackson played his final season of college basketball at Seattle, averaging 12 points in 1977-78. He embraces the time he spent at the university but a year later, mostly due to financial concerns, Seattle U left Division I, landing at the NAIA level.
“I remember being disappointed when they did leave the WCC because while I was at Seattle U it was evident they had such a rich tradition in the one sport I cared about at the time, which was basketball,” Jackson said.
Seattle’s hoops history is impressive. The program reached the NCAA Tournament 11 times in 17 seasons from 1953 through ’69. The high point was 1958, when All-American and future Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor, averaging 32.5 points and 19.3 rebounds for the season, led Seattle to the Final Four. The Chieftains, as they were known in those days, lost 84-72 to powerhouse Kentucky in the national championship game.
Seattle played an independent schedule during that era, but already there were ties to current conference members. Seattle was 9-1 in 1957-58 in games against San Francisco, Santa Clara, Gonzaga and Portland, its lone defeat coming to a USF team it later beat in the NCAA Tournament.
Fink, who spent 17 years working at fellow West Coast Conference member San Diego before being hired as athletic director at Seattle, is excited to rejoin the conference. “It feels really strangely good to be back,” she said. “It’s very comfortable.”
The Redhawks’ connection to the West Coast Conference extends far beyond a more than half-century old basketball history. The fit with Seattle and the schools it joins in the West Coast Conference works on a variety of levels.
“I’m thrilled to have Seattle University in the West Coast Conference. It’s very natural,” Jackson said. “Their academics and athletic mission and the values they’ve maintained throughout their history align with our existing members. In this age of realignment, we see example after example of institutions that may not fit the conferences they are moving to. With Seattle, this seems like a hand in glove.”
Founded in 1891 as Immaculate Conception Parish School and renamed Seattle College in 1898, the university now has an enrollment of 7,200, including graduate students. Its best-known alums, along with Baylor, include music producer Quincy Jones, former tennis pro Tom Gorman, Jim Whittaker, first American to summit Mount Everest, and two-sport legends Eddie and Johnny O’Brien, first twins to play for the same team in the same game in major league baseball. Johnny O’Brien passed away two weeks ago at the age of 94.
Peñalver, who came aboard as Seattle’s president three years ago today, believes the West Coast Conference is where his university belongs.
“The schools in the West Coast Conference share a really nice geographic footprint along the West Coast,” he said. “We share similar size and similar values. The majority of them are faith-based schools. There are real benefits to that. When we’re sitting down and making decisions about athletic policy and priorities, we start from the standpoint of shared values.”
The geography is ideal. In the WAC, Seattle had three conference opponents in Texas and three more in Utah. Those lengthy and often non-direct flights will be replaced by easier travel up and down the West Coast.
The Redhawks sponsor eight men’s sports, including baseball, and nine women’s sports, including softball. Their men’s and women’s soccer teams finished second and third, respectively, in the WAC last season.
The West Coast Conference will feature 12 schools for the 2025-26 season, with Gonzaga departing at the end of the academic year. Washington State and Oregon State, who joined the West Coast Conference as two-year affiliate members, also will exit next spring.
But the West Coast Conference will retain members in every major market on the West Coast, from Seattle to Portland to the San Francisco Bay Area, to Los Angeles to San Diego. Three of those — Los Angeles, the Bay Area and Seattle — are among the top 13 nationally, according to Nielsen’s rankings of Designated Market Areas.
“Why is that important?” Jackson asked. “It’s important for visibility. It’s potentially important for enrollment and recruiting access. Again, it’s just another example of why Seattle makes sense for the conference.”
The fit also had to work on a competitive basis, and Jackson likes what he sees from the Redhawks and how he expects their programs to grow as they join the West Coast Conference.
“I think the key to programs blossoming or improving is they have to be, first and foremost, well managed. What I mean is they have to take what resources they have and make the right decisions and utilize them correctly,” Jackson explained.
“To me, Seattle has a head start. Shaney Fink has chosen two head (basketball) coaches that have the ability to help programs flourish. With becoming a partner in the West Coast Conference, I have to think it’s only going to enhance those two coaches’ ability to continue to improve.”
Chris Victor, beginning his fifth season as coach of the Redhawks’ men’s program, is 80-53 with three 20-win seasons in his first four. Victor was voted WAC Coach of the Year in 2021-22 when Seattle compiled a 23-9 record and was regular-season conference champion in his debut season.
“Ever since I’ve been here the talk has been to get back in the WCC. That’s where this university feels they fit for a lot of reasons,” said Victor, who spent four seasons as an assistant coach at Seattle before being promoted. “So this move back to the WCC means a lot. For our program, it’s a big jump. We’re going to move to one of the premier West Coast basketball conferences with some big-time programs.
“We’ve been growing the last few years and this is a big step for us and a big challenge but something we’re excited for.”
Victor grew up in the Bay Area, so he’s watched West Coast Conference basketball since his childhood. "I’m well aware of the level of this conference, and the success in recent years of a lot of the programs that have been building and getting better and better and better,” he said. “We want to come in and compete.”
Women’s coach Skyler Young, beginning his third season, also has familiarity with the West Coast Conference. He was an assistant to Michael Meek at Portland from 2018 through ’23, where he worked with four-time all-conference star Alex Fowler, the Pilots’ career scoring leader, on teams that challenged Gonzaga at the top of the league.
“Its definitely exciting,” Young said. “We’re going to, in my opinion, the best conference on the West Coast, hands down when it comes to basketball.”
Young’s squad will be challenged to grow after going 10-49 in his first two seasons after inheriting a program that has just one NCAA Tournament bid (2018) in its brief Division I history. He said the move to the West Coast Conference already is reaping benefits with nine newcomers on the roster for this season.
“When the announcement happened last year, the whole mindset shifted, recruiting-wise,” he said. “Literally the day it happened, the amount of recruits we could talk to or we were a backup plan, now we’re in the picture with them. We’re on the same stage as these other schools that were recruiting them.
“This offseason, our roster that we were able to put together out of the portal and with freshmen coming in, that probably wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t make this move to this conference. It just holds so much weight in men’s and women’s basketball with the history. It helps us.”
Fink is confident this will be a department-wide benefit. “We’ve already seen an uptick,” she said. “The competitive strength of the conference, across all the sports programs but particularly in basketball, really resonates with the recruits.”
Another component in the modern college athletics landscape is a program’s ability to compete financially on the Name Image and Likeness (NIL) front. Peñalver said Seattle’s NIL program will continue to develop with the West Coast Conference affiliation.
“I think we’re in a good market to attract NIL,” he said. "The conference shift will help with that because people appreciate the direction of the program and they want to invest in the success of our programs. I think we’re well-positioned. We have a good organization, strong alumni support and I think some people have been kind of on the sidelines waiting for this.”
The reunion between Seattle and the West Coast Conference should also be warmly greeted by fans, said Fink, who expects to see an attendance boost in home men’s and women’s basketball. “Our alumni base lives in all of these areas,” she said. “And every one of the West Coast Conference schools have alumni bases in Seattle.”
Nearly a half-century after Seattle opted out of the West Coast Conference, everything seems in place for the two parties to thrive hand-in-hand.
“Seattle U’s return to Division I was built to belong in the West Coast Conference,” Fink said. “Our sport alignment, our size — these are peer institutions. Philosophically, we want to compete at the highest level and be part of the national conversation and I think that’s what the West Coast Conference does really well, competing across broad sports but certainly focused on basketball.”