UC Santa Barbara is one of those mid-major sports schools that must keep its eye on the ball.
And not just the ones made of rubber or horsehide.
A soothsaying crystal ball is now the most important sphere of influence for the Gauchos.
Athletic director Kelly Barsky must foresee the future of UCSB’s current league — the Big West Conference — as compared to that of a West Coast Conference that covets her Gauchos.
The question is sure to pound inside her head like the beat of a 1980s punk-rock song.
“Should I stay, or should I go now? … If I go, there will be trouble …And if I stay, it will be double …”
The WCC queued up this tune last week by convincing the UC San Diego Tritons to jump the Big West ship and become its 10th member starting July 1, 2027.
The Big West was already taking on water with the imminent departures of Hawai‘i and UC Davis.
Multiple sources confirm that the WCC also has its eyes on the Gauchos and sister school UC Irvine to boost its membership to an even dozen.
“Those who value academics over athletics should be even more eager about a move to the West Coast Conference.”
WCC commissioner Stu Jackson did nothing to discourage that by voicing the organization’s commitment to add “one to three institutions.”
The ball, undoubtedly, is now bouncing around in the Gauchos’ court.
Barsky always plays her cards close to the vest. She’s the last to discuss a subject of this magnitude in an open forum before taking it to her boss.
She got a new one this summer when UCSB hired Dennis Assanis as Henry Yang’s successor as chancellor, and who knows what he’s thinking about Gaucho sports.
But Barsky acknowledged last fall that this game of musical chairs had her full attention when Hawai‘i and UC Davis announced their exits.
They’ll join the Mountain West Conference starting in the 2026-2027 school calendar year.
“I think you have to have a real open and growth mindset and understand that there’s going to be some shifting,” she told Noozhawk. “I can’t really comment on when or where we receive outreach for those kinds of things.
“What I’m willing to say is that we’re going to continue to lean in on what we’ve built out and will continue to build out our strategic plans.”
Back to the Future
The Gauchos switched to the WCC once before — back when it was known as the West Coast Athletic Association.
Although their membership lasted just six years, UCSB could hardly be accused of wanderlust during its first century of intercollegiate athletics.
It helped create its first conference — the California Collegiate Athletic Association — by joining three other schools as charter members in the school year of 1938-1939.
The Gauchos later upgraded their NCAA status from College Division (now known as Division II) to University Division (Division I) by signing on with the WCC in the fall of 1963.
They went through a short transition period before becoming full members in 1964-1965.
UCSB still played football in those days. Its head coach, Jack Curtice, envisioned big things for his Gauchos, and he had the clout to get them done when he took over as the university’s athletic director in 1965.
He got the university to build a 16,000-seat, on-campus stadium — completed in 1966 — with plans to expand to 33,000.
Curtice, who had previously coached at Utah and Stanford, also scheduled ambitiously with such football opponents as Texas Tech in 1970, and Washington and Tennessee in 1971.
He also signed a contract to play at Wisconsin in 1972 and was arranging future home games against the likes of Arizona, Colorado, Utah and Air Force.
The WCC, however, did not have — nor did it want — enough football-playing schools to sponsor the sport.
Santa Barbara News-Press sports editor Phil Patton — otherwise known as “Dad” in our Mesa district home — opined in one of his columns that the WCC had “blundered” by denying the membership applications of both San Diego State and Fresno State in 1968.
The WCC was an emerging force in college basketball with such NCAA tournament regulars as USF and Santa Clara. The league didn’t want the unpredictable bounce of a football to knock them off course.
Pop’s crystal ball, however, gave a glowing picture of what could have been.
“They could have laid the groundwork for their conference to eventually become one of the strongest in the NCAA,” he wrote.
The WCC’s reluctance stirred a revolt at UCSB.
The Gauchos seceded from the league the next year and joined San Diego State, Fresno State, San José State, Long Beach State and Cal State Los Angeles in a new outfit called the Pacific Coast Athletic Association.
The league, rebranded as the Big West Conference in 1988, kicked off its existence when Long Beach State visited UCSB for a football game on Sept. 20, 1969.
“I really think that the new conference will provide a real challenge to our university and will mark a great step toward improving our athletics in the future,” Curtice told the News-Press.
Political Football
The timing couldn’t have been worse.
Student unrest at UCSB over the Vietnam War and other issues quickly reduced the attendance at football games and increased a budget shortfall for Gaucho athletics.
UCSB dropped the sport altogether after the 1971 season.
The Big West (née PCAA) responded in kind by dropping the Gauchos — a two-year banishment to independent status — before reinstating them in 1976.
A lot in the conference has changed since then.
The Big West, which hasn’t sponsored football for the last quarter-century, will have had 28 full and associate members go through its revolving door by the time Cal Baptist, Sacramento State and Utah Valley make their entrances.
The irony of UC San Diego’s departure — a big loss for the Big West, considering the Tritons’ full-throttled investment in athletics — is that the school initially was barred from entering.
A majority of Big West chancellors and presidents voted to deny UCSD’s membership in April 2017. The four Cal State schools didn’t want the four UC schools to gain a voting advantage by admitting one of their sisters.
UC San Diego finally gained acceptance seven months later when the UC schools agreed to a package deal in which Cal State Bakersfield also gained admittance.
The Tritons have proven themselves more than worthy. Last year, they became the first school to ever win NCAA tournament berths in both men’s and women’s basketball during their first year of Division I eligibility.
The recent turn of events, however, has dramatically flipped the balance of power in the league.
The UC exodus and Sacramento State’s admittance have given the Cal States a Big West Council voting advantage of 6-3.
That matters to schools like UCSB and UCI which have been constantly frustrated by the frugality of their Cal State brethren.
If a rising tide does indeed lift all ships, the Gauchos and Anteaters could get stranded on a Big West sandbar.
Numbers Game
UC San Diego has the biggest athletic budget ($33.3 million) among the Big West’s nonfootball schools.
An enrollment of 45,273 — second largest in the nation for NCAA Division I schools that shun the gridiron — has allowed the Tritons to get rich quick with student fees.
UCSB’s budget of $33.2 million is a close second even though its enrollment of 26,133 is just a little more than half of UC San Diego’s. UCI’s budget ranks third in the Big West at $31.4 million.
The Cal State schools all rank below that — some far below. Bakersfield brings up the rear at a paltry $18.7 million.
The Big West has coddled its cheapskates by mandating none of the investments in recruiting, scheduling and other enhancements that upgraded the WCC into a two-bid conference in NCAA men’s basketball.
WCC basketball placed 11th out of 31 NCAA Division I conferences in the KenPom rankings for the last decade.
The Big West, which ranked 17th, hasn’t been a two-bid league since the University of Pacific and Utah State earned berths in 2005.
They both eventually left the Big West for higher ground.
That should be a cue for UCSB.
Those who value academics over athletics should be even more eager about a move to the WCC.
UC San Diego’s addition gives it five schools ranked among the top 109 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Of the six Cal State schools that will be members next year, only Cal Poly makes that cut.
UCSB saw the writing on the Big West wall two decades ago when it lobbied the WCC for membership.
The league turned down the Gauchos, expressing its desire to remain a league of private schools.
The UC San Diego Tritons knocked down that door last week.
It’s UCSB’s turn to follow them through.
