A monumental change years in the making is finally coming to fruition for Westmont College Athletics.
After establishing a winning tradition and an outstanding reputation in the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics), capturing 10 national championships and boasting 637 All-Americans, Westmont is moving to the NCAA Division II.
The Warriors will make the leap this fall.
“We welcome the challenge,” athletic director Robert Ruiz said. “We’re driven, competitive and want to be great.”
Hello, Old Friends
With the move, the Warriors will be competing in the Pacific West, or PacWest, Conference. In that conference are former members of the Golden State Athletics Conference (GSAC), in which Westmont played since the conference’s inception in 1986.
They will reunite with old rivals Azusa Pacific, Biola, Concordia, Fresno Pacific and Point Loma Nazarene.
The Academy of Art, Chaminade, Dominican, Hawai‘i Hilo, Hawai‘i Pacific and Holy Names are the other members of the conference.
“The thing that we are most excited about is getting back to our old rivalries,” Ruiz told Noozhawk.
“The PacWest conference is filled with schools that we have competed against historically for a long time.”
The conference is strong and consistently competitive among all sports, especially in baseball.
“Every team in our conference is going to have the potential of being a very good team, just like we have our own self-awareness that we need to be better,” said baseball head coach Tyler LaTorre, whose 2023 team won the NAIA national championship in June.
“It’s important that we have the depth and the willingness to get better because our conference is going to get better every year.”
On a more campus-wide level, the new conference will allow Westmont to compete against programs with similar school dynamics, according to LaTorre, who notes there are more Southern California squads and schools that are “faith-based with high academics.”
From Top Dog to Underdog
Westmont has been a force to be reckoned with at the NAIA level, consistently competing for conference and national championships across all sports.
On top of the 10 national championships in the trophy cabinet, the school has placed in the top four of the NAIA 33 times across 11 different programs.
While the years of success will forever be a part of Westmont’s athletic history, the Division II level could alter the outlook of being a perennial contender.
Westmont women’s volleyball coach Ruth McGolpin is looking forward to the new challenge.
“It’s the first time we’ve been the underdog in a long time,” she said. “In a way, that’s a blessing because everybody has always played Westmont out of their minds. They could be the worst team in the country and they play us fantastic.”
The underdog mindset is one that has been coined by teams throughout the history of sports, especially at the college level, but it is unusual for a team to win a national championship and be considered “underdogs” the very next season.
That is the situation Westmont baseball finds itself in. The program capped its final year in the NAIA with its first national title.
LaTorre said Westmont has established a winning culture that will carry over to the Division II level.
“No matter what level of baseball you’re playing, there is a winning style of baseball, and I think our players know that,” he said.
“There’s a recipe for how we play winning baseball and I don’t think that will change with our transition to Division II.”
McGolpin shares that sentiment.
“I think the skill level is the same, it’s the misnomer of what the NAIA is,” she said. “The top NAIA teams in the country are just as good as the Division II teams.
“The difference is that there are no nights off.”
Ruiz also believes all the teams on campus are ready to jump into this new chapter and compete.
“We’ve done our homework and we are steadily preparing ourselves,” he said. “By no means do we think we will step into the Division II West Region landscape and be dominant.
“We just want to continue to strive for excellence.”
The Ups and Downs
The rise in the ranks will bring improvement in facilities and resources for student-athletes and teams.
Ruiz told Noozhawk that there are currently four ongoing renovations on campus: the construction of a press box and stadium seating at baseball’s Russell Carr Field, a fully renovated tennis complex, an on-campus golf practice facility and a fully renovated practice soccer facility.
“The renovations aren’t only because we’re going to Division II, but it fits with our strive for excellence because we want to provide the best possible facilities we can,” Ruiz said.
“We are going to do our best within our framework as an institution to ultimately prioritize those student-athletes and give them the best possible experience we can.”
The move to NCAA Division II also will have an impact on recruiting.
Ruiz said the NCAA brand is more recognizable to student athletes.
“We might get access to a higher level of athlete because we are, in public perception, moving to a higher level,” he noted.
“Right, wrong or indifferent, being in the NCAA elevates your status in the eyes of people. I think it increases opportunities for prospective student-athletes and current student-athletes to compete at a higher level, which hopefully will open doors for them to compete at a level beyond this.”
While the jump to Division II has already had positive impacts on Westmont Athletics, there will be some issues to cope with during the transition process.
The Warriors won’t be eligible to participate in postseason play for the next two seasons, as they are treated as provisional years.
“There’s some balancing act you have to play in these next couple years because you want to make sure you’re building a team that’s ready to be at their best when you hit that 2025-26 year,” Ruiz said.
“We have to find where we fit, where we need to get better and figure out our blind spots in these next two years.”
LaTorre, who went through a change almost identical to this one while playing baseball for UC Davis during its transition to Division I from Division II, views these years as an important opportunity for the entire athletic department.
“Just because we’re not making playoffs doesn’t mean that we’re not going to leave our imprint on this program,” he said. “Allowing our players to understand that and know that the ups and downs are building toward something is going to be the most important thing.”
The Right People in Place
When the rumbles of the college making the transition to Division II began, the importance of having the right staff in place was evident, and it started at the top.
While in the NAIA, Westmont had associate athletic directors but never had one full-time person for the position, which is a requirement for joining the NCAA.
So, the university turned to Ruiz, the winningest baseball coach in school history, and he stepped into the position in June 2022.
However, it was going to take more than one person to guide an athletic department through a transition like this one.
“We’re collectively working at the whole group having success together and navigating that landscape together,” Ruiz said.
“There’s a lot of unity in our department right now. It’s not individual programs making the move, it’s a department moving together.”
Every coach and team, according to Ruiz, has played a role in the transition process in one way or another.
One of those coaches is LaTorre, who took over Ruiz’s position as head baseball coach in 2022 and led his team to a national championship one year later.
LaTorre played his college years at UC Davis from 2002 to 2006 while the school was making the jump in divisions, and he has also coached at the Division II level with San Francisco State.
“There’s something that I lived as a player that I think is really important as a coach now, helping guide a team and a group of young men through this transition,” he said.
“(The transition) was something that I looked forward to, I wanted to embrace, and I wanted to help this program and this athletic department move through this transition.”
Ruiz and the Westmont athletic department have the goal of providing a framework to be successful at a higher level.
He said they will do this by leaning on their biggest strength, their identity as a small Christian liberal arts school in Santa Barbara that is always ready to take on a challenge.
“We love what we have to offer, and it’s our job to now go out and prove that we can do that competitively and successfully at the Division II level,” Ruiz said.
“We will bring what we think is great about who we are into that level and fearlessly walk into that situation ready to compete.”