“Support WSU athletics and our move of the Apple Cup game to Qwest field and give us money for Stadium renovation or Maybe… Just Maybe… We’ll get kicked out of the Pac-10”

There is about as much chance of that happening as there is of… (Stall for me to find apt analogy)… of me putting on a purple T-Shirt and going to the Husky Spring Game (Absolutely 0%). Every School in D1 is in a money crunch and the Pac-10 will understand that. I usually like Jim Sterk but I absolutely despise this comment and totally disagree with the way he is approaching this.

So, did you know that your beloved Cougars played as Indepents in the late 50’s and early 60’s ?

The Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) was a college athletic conference in the United States which existed from 1915 to 1959. Though the Pacific-10 Conference (Pac-10) claims the PCC’s history as part of its own, the older league had a completely different charter and was disbanded in 1959 due to a major crisis and scandal.

PCC members

    * University of California, Berkeley (1915-1959)
    * University of Oregon (1915-1959)
    * Oregon Agricultural College (1915-1959)
    * University of Washington (1915-1959)
    * Washington State College (1917-1959)
    * Stanford University (1918-1959)
    * University of Idaho (1922-1959)
    * University of Southern California (1922-1959, suspended in 1924)
    * University of Montana (1924-1950)
    * University of California, Los Angeles (1928-1959)

The conference was wracked by scandal in 1951. Charges were made and confirmed that the University of Oregon football coach had violated the conference code for financial aid and athletic subsidies. After firing the violating coach, Oregon urged the PCC to look at similar abuses by UCLA football coach Red Sanders. The conference spent five years attempting to reform itself. In 1956, the scandal became public.

A second scandal broke in Washington, when in January 1956, several discontented players staged a mutiny against their coach. After the coach was fired, the PCC followed up on charges of a slush fund. The PCC found evidence of the illegal activities of the Greater Washington Advertising Fund run by Roscoe C “Torchy” Torrance, and in May imposed sanctions.

In March, allegations of illegal payments made by two booster clubs associated with UCLA, the Bruin Bench and the Young Men’s Club of Westwood were published in LA newspapers. UCLA refused for ten weeks to allow PCC officials to proceed in their investigation. Finally, UCLA admitted that, “all members of the football coaching staff had, for several years, known of the unsanctioned payments to student athletes and had cooperated with the booster club members or officers, who actually administered the program by actually preferring student athletes to them for such aid.” The scandal thickened as a UCLA alumnus and member of the UCLA athletic advisory board blew the whistle on a secret fund for illegal payments to USC players, known as the Southern California Educational Foundation. This same alumnus also blew the whistle on Cal’s phony work program for athletes known as the San Francisco Gridiron Club, with an extension in the Los Angeles area known as the South Seas Fund.

Aftershocks and disbandment.

The first major reaction came from the University of California system. Robert Sproul, president of the University of California, along with the chancellors of Berkeley and UCLA, drafted a “Five Point Plan”, emphasizing academic eligibility standards, setting the two UC campuses apart from the PCC and laying the groundwork for their departure. For Sproul the PCC dispute was not just about athletics; at stake was the ideal of a unified University of California that enjoyed statewide support. This ideal collided with aspirations of UCLA alumni who believed that Sproul’s vision would always favor the Berkeley campus at the expense of the younger UCLA campus.

Oregon State College president August Leroy Strand wrote, “The reasons for California and UCLA dropping out are as different as night and day… the significance of the whole affair was the union of Berkeley and UCLA… admissions and scholarship had nothing to do with the withdrawals…” Berkeley’s desire to schedule athletic contests only with academic equals is real, though it seldom has been expressed. “The marriage of this desire on the part of Berkeley with the known ambitions and necessities of its sister institution has produced a bastard that has the bard of a purebred but the innards and hair of a mongrel.”

By 1957 the conference had fallen apart, leading to the decision to dissolve in 1959. Soon after the PCC was dissolved, five of its former members (California, Washington, UCLA, USC, and Stanford) created the AAWU. After initially being blocked from admission, three of the four remaining schools would eventually join (Washington State in 1962, Oregon & Oregon State in 1964), but members were not required to play other members. Tensions were high between UCLA and Stanford, as Stanford had voted for UCLA’s expulsion from the PCC.

Idaho, which was not involved in the scandals but had become noncompetitive in the PCC, was also barred from AAWU admittance in 1959. Unlike Washington State, Oregon and Oregon State, Idaho did not pursue AAWU admission, and competed as an independent before becoming a charter member of the Big Sky Conference in 1963. Idaho retains no strong connections to its PCC past, other than a continuing rivalry with neighboring Washington State; the two land grant campuses are just 8 miles (13 km) apart on the Palouse.

The AAWU eventually strengthened its bonds and became the Pacific 8 Conference (Pac-8), renaming itself in 1968.

go read the on line Wall Street Journal article : New Unrest on Campus as Donors Rebel

The cash problems the Athletic Dept. faces are very real. The one way to to start a grass roots campaign to change that is for everyone to just join the foundation. It’s $100 annually. The local foundation chapters have events all year long that are afordable to be a part of and a hell of a good time. The King County Chapter has its annual golf tourney, The King County Cougar Golf Classic, coming up May 31st at Newcastle. A bunch of coaches and former stars will be there, the course is spectacular and the beverages are hosted, yes hosted. If you would like to put together a group of five, or join is as a single, throw your email out there and I will shoot you the info. The other chapters around the state also have events going on year round, so take a look and get involved. But at the very least, if you care about WSU athletics at all, just join the foundation.