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2 0 1 9 - 2 0 P A C - 1 2 Y E A R I N R E V I E W 30 P A C - 1 2 C O N F E R E N C E es poll. The Pac-12 has won a NCAA-record 17 of 39 NCAA titles awarded. The Pac-12 baseball and softball seasons abruptly came to an end just be- fore league play got underway because of the COVID-19 pandemic. UCLA was leading the country with the lowest hits allowed per nine innings average (4.97) and best WHIP (0.87). Six Pac-12 student-athletes were named to the 2020 Golden Spikes Award watch list and two were named to the NCBWA Stopper of the Year preseason watch list. The Pac-12 has had nine Golden Spikes Award winners all-time, leading all other conferences. The Pac-12 has, by far, won the most baseball national titles of any conference in the country, claiming 29 titles dating back to 1947 when the !rst NCAA Championship was contested, including 2019 winner Oregon State. The Pac-12 has historically dominated the softball !eld, as well, claiming a national record 24 NCAA titles in the 38-year history of the championship, the most recent coming in 2019 when UCLA captured its 13th all-time. Pac-12 teams captured an unprecedented nine in a row from 1988-1997, then claimed six-straight from 2006-11. At least one Pac-12 team has reached the NCAA Women's College World Series championship series 30 times. Three teams were among the top-!ve in the national polls when the season was cancelled in mid- March, including UCLA and WASHINGTON occupying Nos. 1 and 2 in the USA Today/NFCA poll, with ARIZONA ranking in the top !ve. Twelve student-athletes across !ve schools were named to the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year Watch List, 10 in total were tabbed preseason All-Americans. PAC-12 CONFERENCE HISTORY The roots of the Pac-12 Conference date back more than 100 years to De- cember 2, 1915, when the Paci!c Coast Conference (PCC) was founded at a meeting at the Imperial Hotel in Portland, Oregon. The original membership consisted of four schools - the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, and Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University). All four are still charter members of the Conference. Paci!c Coast Conference play began in 1916 and, one year later, Wash- ington State College (now Washington State University) was accepted into the league, with Stanford University following in 1918. In 1922, the PCC expanded to eight teams with the admission of the Uni- versity of Southern California (USC) and the University of Idaho. In 1924, the University of Montana joined the league roster and in 1928, the PCC grew to 10 members with the addition of UCLA. The Paci!c Coast Conference competed as a 10-member league until 1950, with the exception of 1943-45 when World War II curtailed intercollegiate ath- letic competition to a minimum. During that time, the league's !rst commis- sioner was named. Edwin N. Atherton was Commissioner in 1940 and was succeeded by Victor O. Schmidt in 1944. In 1950, Montana resigned from the Conference and the PCC continued as a nine-team Conference through 1958. In 1959, the PCC was dissolved and the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU) was formed with Thomas J. Hamilton appointed Commis- sioner of the new league. The original AAWU membership included California, Stanford, USC, UCLA, and Washington. Washington State joined the member- ship in 1962, while Oregon and Oregon State joined in 1964. Under Hamilton's watch, the name Paci!c-8 Conference was adopted in 1968. In 1971, Wiles Hallock took over as Commissioner of the Pac-8. Ten years later, on July 1, 1978, the University of Arizona and Arizona State University were admitted to the league and the Paci!c-10 Conference became a reality. In 1986-87, the league took on a new look, expanding to include 10 women's sports. Since then, the Conference has been considered the premier league in women's athletics, securing the most NCAA titles in women's sports of any conference nearly every year. Thomas C. Hansen was named the Commissioner of the Pac-10 in 1983, a role he would hold for 26 years until 2009, when he was succeeded by current Commissioner Larry Scott. The University of Colorado accepted its invitation to join the Pac-12 on June 11, 2010, and on June 17, 2010, the University of Utah agreed to join the Con- ference. The Conference became the Pac-12 and of!cially began competition on July 1, 2011. It was during the 2010-11 academic year that Scott helped deliver monu- mental changes that transformed the Conference into a modern 12-team league. In addition to expanding to 12 teams, member institutions agreed to equal revenue sharing for the !rst time in the Conference's history, created two football divisions - the North and the South, and established a Football Cham- pionship Game for the !rst time. He also secured landmark media rights deals with ESPN and FOX that dramatically increased national exposure and revenue for each school, in addition to establishing Pac-12 Networks which guaranteed enhanced exposure across all sports. Currently, the Pac-12 sponsors 11 men's sports and 13 women's sports, with the most recent additions coming in the 2017-18 (women's lacrosse) and 2015-16 (beach volleyball) academic years. Additionally, the Conference is a member of the Mountain Paci!c Sports Federation (MPSF) in four other men's sports and two women's sports. The Pac-12 Conference of!ces are located in the heart of San Francisco in the SOMA district.