For a century, the Northwest Conference has brought colleges and universities together through intercollegiate athletics across the Pacific Northwest. Founded in 1926, the NWC is one of the oldest athletic conferences in the western United States. Today, nine private colleges and universities in Oregon and Washington compete as NCAA Division III members, joined by a shared commitment to academic centrality, unity and competitive excellence.
The conference of 2026 looks different from the one that first gathered in 1926, but its founding purpose still holds: institutions coming together to compete, collaborate and create meaningful experiences for their students.
The NWC began with six charter members: Willamette University, Whitman College, Pacific University, the College of Puget Sound, Linfield College and the College of Idaho. Over the decades, membership evolved as institutions joined, departed and, in several cases, returned. Albany College joined in 1931 and later became Lewis & Clark College, rejoining the conference in 1949. Pacific Lutheran University joined in 1965. Whitworth College joined in 1970, left in 1984 and returned in 1988. George Fox University joined in 1996 as the conference moved into the NCAA.
Even with those changes, the NWC has maintained an uncommon level of continuity. Five of its six charter members remain in the conference today, creating a direct link to the institutions that founded the NWC a century ago. At a time when conference realignment has reshaped much of college athletics, that continuity is remarkable. It speaks to the relationships among NWC institutions and to the shared values that have kept them competing alongside one another for generations.
For its first 60 years, the NWC sponsored athletics exclusively for men. In 1984, the NWC merged with the Women's Conference of Independent Colleges to form the Northwest Conference of Independent Colleges, bringing men's and women's athletics together under one structure. In 1996, the conference joined NCAA Division III and adopted its current name.
The move to Division III reflected a deliberate commitment to equity, sportsmanship and the student-athlete experience, reinforcing athletics as part of a broader education rather than separate from it. Over the years, the NWC has continued to evolve with its member institutions and with college athletics, adapting to change while maintaining the relationships and shared purpose at its core.
That combination of continuity and change has produced a century of competition and achievement. NWC teams have won 10 NCAA Division III national championships across football, baseball, softball, basketball, track and field and golf. The McIlroy-Lewis All-Sports Trophy, named for longtime conference leaders Jane McIlroy of Linfield and John Lewis of Willamette, has recognized all-around athletic excellence among member institutions for decades.
But championships and records only tell part of the story.
The NWC has been shaped just as much by the connections between its member institutions as by what happens on the field, court, course or pool. It can be found in administrators working together, coaches building relationships across programs, and student-athletes competing hard against one another before supporting one another off the field. It is found in institutions with different identities and traditions coming together around a shared vision for Division III athletics.
Those connections have given the NWC both its identity and its staying power. They have carried the conference through changes in membership, the growth of women's athletics, the transition to the NCAA and a century of change across college sports.
Looking Ahead
A century after its founding, the Northwest Conference continues to evolve. The institutions and student-athletes of the future will look different from those of 1926, just as today's conference looks different from the one founded a hundred years ago.
What has not changed is the reason those institutions came together in the first place: to create opportunities for students through competition, education and community.