After five years as an all-California league, the Big West Conference will once again say aloha to the University of Hawaii.
The nine members of the Big West Conference Board of Directors unanimously voted for Hawaii to join as the 10th member of the conference, commissioner Dennis Farrell said Friday at a press conference from Hawaii’s Bachman Hall.
Cal State Bakersfield and UC San Diego, both also up for consideration, were not extended an invitation to join the Big West.
CSUB and UCSD were not recommended by the Big West Council and, therefore, a vote was not taken by the board, Long Beach State president F. King Alexander said via e-mail. Alexander and the eight other chancellors and presidents in the Big West comprised the board.
“We are excited and pleased with the addition of Hawaii to the Big West Conference,” UC Irvine chancellor Michael Drake, the chair of the board of directors, said in a release. “In assessing Hawaii, the board carefully considered and was impressed by both its legacy of athletic success and its commitment to academic excellence.”
Hawaii will join Long Beach State, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Northridge, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara, Cal Poly and the University of the Pacific in 13 sports, effective July 1, 2012. The school will compete in: baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, women’s cross country, men’s and women’s golf, women’s soccer, men’s and women’s tennis, women’s track and field, women’s water polo, women’s volleyball and softball.
“I’m really excited to have Hawaii,” said LBSU softball head coach Kim Sowder, who once played for the 49ers from 1989-92 and remembered competing against Hawaii. “It raises the level of our conference and certainly helps us with recruiting, too.”
Hawaii, a member of the Western Athletic Conference for 32 years, also ended its reign as the longest-tenured institution in the conference. Its football program will join the Mountain West Conference.
Travel costs and subsidies have yet to be sorted out, but Hawaii athletic director Jim Donovan said the school could save “as much as a quarter-million dollars” with the move.
“What we had to look at was the opportunity cost of staying in the WAC as it geographically moved further and further to the Central Time Zone,” Donovan said. “That would have meant additional costs for us, more time away for our student-athletes, which would impact them academically. So, certainly, we’ll have cost savings playing the Big West as compared to the WAC.
“We couldn’t afford not to do it.”
Hawaii spent $3.7 million on travel expenses during the 2008-09 athletic year, according to a USA Today database. LBSU spent $867,873 during the same period.
Farrell recalled a conversation he had with Donovan during a flight in April about the “good ol’ days” when the Rainbow Wahine competed in the Big West.
“We talked about all the great rivalries that [Hawaii head coach Dave Shoji] had with [LBSU head coach] Brian Gimmillaro and [UCSB head coach] Kathy Gregory,” Farrell said. “As we were chatting, he said, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to someday go back to the future?’
“Well, today we’re back to the future, and I couldn’t be more delighted.”
In a statement released by Hawaii, Shoji said, “We are looking forward to renewing some old rivalries as we have great history with Cal Poly, UOP, and Long Beach State. I think it will be a more competitive conference which will help with our RPI and our national prominence.”
Donovan said the men’s volleyball program, which competes in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation with LBSU, could eventually explore a six-team Big West with CSUN, UCI, UCSB and Pacific. Six teams are needed for a conference to gain an automatic bid for the NCAA tournament.
The Big West last expanded when UC Davis joined in 2007. The Big West lifted its five-year membership moratorium Nov. 16 to allow for the possibility of expansion.
“We are very, very proud and honored that the members of the Big West have voted to invite the University of Hawaii to their excellent conference,” Hawaii president M.R.C. Greenwood said. “We’re going to bring one heck of a set of teams and they should not expect the ‘aloha’ to go too far while we are playing their teams.”
Hawaii, a member of the Big West from 1984-96 in women’s athletics, will become the first non-California institution to join the conference since Idaho and Utah State both left in 2005.
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