As the 2023-24 academic year drew to a close, there was a breakup on the Seattle University campus. The soon-to-be-decoupled couple decided to call it quits after 13 years together. That couple? Seattle U and the Western Athletic Conference.
After 13 years of bliss, it’s time for both parties to hand over vestiges of the other’s stuff. It’s time to contemplate whether or not to continue following one another on Instagram. Perhaps there will be a brief, ill-fated reconciliation attempt that just causes more pain (think pre-conference rematches with old flames, Grand Canyon University or Utah Valley).
Times have changed, and a sun-tanned, beach-blond lover called the West Coast Conference (WCC) has stolen Seattle U’s heart. With that context, it’s only right that we take one last look at our ex.
Seattle U’s time in the conference came to a close in Arlington, Texas. Two different teams gathered down south for one last crack at the WAC. Baseball dropped their last game to UT Arlington at the Clay Gould Ballpark, falling short of the conference tournament. Less than a mile away, runners from Seattle U set a school record in the WAC Championships 4x400m relay to cap off their season.
But the baton has been passed, the final out recorded. It’s fitting that this partnership ended under the Texas sun—it’s one of the first things that Alex Jensen, a fifth-year on the track team, thinks about when he thinks WAC.
“Every time we go to Texas for our WAC track championships, there seems to be, like, a weather storm that delays the whole meet by like two hours or cancels our flights. So, just enjoying that because you get to spend more time with your team in the bus or, like, the airport. So yeah, the thunderstorms are what’s known in the WAC,” Jensen said.
Jensen’s positive perspective on logistical challenges was echoed by other athletes. Jensen co-hosted the Rudy’s, a student athlete award show, with Jade Quintana May 29. Quintana, a fourth-year kinesiology major and player on the women’s tennis team, had similar aspects of the WAC on her mind that night.
“I think of some tough teams, some hot weather in Texas, and I think of the WAC finals my freshman year. That was an epic tournament and one of my favorite memories from back in general,” Quintana said.
Epic indeed—Quintana excitedly recounted how Seattle U defeated the number one seed in the 2022 tournament and made it to the finals, the furthest the school has ever advanced. That run looms large in the program’s memory and serves as an example of the tight competition Redhawks have enjoyed against WAC opponents.
Jensen emphasized “progressive excellence,” his term that describes how the WAC has grown over the years as a conference.
“Since my freshman year, it’s been getting better and better and better. To have the competition keep rising, it brings out the best in you. So I’ve been pretty lucky to be in the WAC,” Jensen said. “But I’m pretty excited to be in the, well, I’m pretty excited for everyone else to be in the WCC.”
Kait Raffensperger, a fourth-year cell and molecular biology major, played as a center back on the school’s women’s soccer team. Raffensperger was named WAC Co-Defensive Player of the Year after a deep 2023 playoff run by the Redhawks and won Eddie O’Brien Student Athlete of the Year at the Rudys.
“I think we’ve developed some really fun rivalries over the years. Definitely playing against Utah Valley and [Grand Canyon University] for women’s soccer has been a lot of fun over the years,” Raffensperger said.
The loss of those rivalries will be felt, even if leaving the WAC means avoiding some of its more challenging aspects.
“Being Seattle U, we are the farthest team from every other school, and it was difficult sometimes having to travel so far. And sometimes it was really long days, but I think it meant showing up every day, no matter how tired you were, no matter how difficult it was. We really showed up together as a team, and I think every team at this school deals with those same challenges,” Raffensperger said.
Seattle U joined the WAC in the 2012-13 academic year. This came after a few years of non-conference Division 1 competition under then-president Fr. Stephen V. Sundborg, S.J.’s assertion that Seattle U would move to D1 with or without a conference. The WAC gave Seattle U a path to NCAA tournaments, strong rivals and a place for countless Seattle U athletes to be recognized for their talents with conference awards.
If you were studying into the evening May 29 in Pigott, you might have been disrupted by a flood of student athletes, dressed to the nines, enjoying the end of another successful year of competition.
The Spectator archives on the library’s website show a window into a similar moment in the school’s history. A May 23, 2007 article by Staff Writer Rose Egge describes “a buzz of approval” at a basketball banquet over the announcement of a return to Division 1. That same sort of buzz was present in the Pigott’s PACCAR Atrium, but this time around, over a new era of Division 1 competition.
