By: Evan O'Kelly, Associate Commissioner for Communications
PORTLAND, Ore. – To commemorate its 25th year of competition, the Great Northwest Athletic Conference launched an ongoing campaign that will be featured throughout the 2025-26 academic year to recognize memorable moments of success achieved by league members throughout its history.
The commemorative GNAC 25th anniversary webpage will be updated throughout the 2025-26 academic year with moments from all sports and all seasons since the conference was formed. View the webpage online here.
Founded in July, 2001, the GNAC connected institutions across the Western United States into the largest geographic footprint among NCAA Division II conferences. The conference sponsors 16 women’s and men’s varsity sports, including cross country, soccer, volleyball, basketball, baseball, softball, track and field, golf and rowing.
Located in five states and the Canadian province of British Columbia, and with a strong presence in or near the largest city of each, the Great Northwest Athletic Conference has established itself as one of the top NCAA Division II athletic conferences in the nation during its 24-year history.
On June 2, 2025, the GNAC
released a new logo for the first time in its history. The former GNAC logo, featuring a green triangle with lower-case ‘gnac’ lettering, was utilized from the league’s inception in 2001 through the end of the 2024-25 academic year.
GNAC Memorable Moments
Alaska Anchorage Cross Country Dominance (9/5/2025)
Few GNAC programs experienced a stretch of dominance like the Michael Friess-led Alaska Anchorage Seawolves cross country programs through the 2010s. From 2009 through 2018, UAA captured 17 of the 20 GNAC Cross Country Championships team titles between its women's and men's programs. The remarkable run included a stretch of five consecutive men's team titles from 2009-13 and then a stretch of four straight men's titles from 2015-18. On the women's side, UAA won seven GNAC Championships in a row from 2010-16. In addition to the team dominance, UAA runners won 16 of the 20 individual GNAC Championships titles during that stretch as well. Overall the Seawolves have the most GNAC Cross Country Championships of any school in the conference with 20, including 11 women's team titles and nine men's team titles.
Membership
The GNAC’s 10 full-time members are located throughout one of the most picturesque areas of North America, covering five U.S. states and one Canadian province.
Representing the Evergreen State in the conference are Central Washington University, Saint Martin’s University, Seattle Pacific University and Western Washington University. All four schools are within 110 miles of Seattle, the state’s largest city.
Alaska is the home to GNAC members University of Alaska Anchorage and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The only Canadian member in the NCAA is Simon Fraser University, which is located in Burnaby, B.C., a suburb of Canada's third-largest city, Vancouver.
Other conference members include Western Oregon University, which is a short drive from both the capital of Oregon (Salem) and the state’s largest city (Portland); Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, which is located near Idaho’s largest city and capital (Boise), and Montana State University Billings, which is situated in the largest city in the Treasure State.
The GNAC also has a presence in California with Cal Poly Humboldt (formerly Humboldt State) as an affiliate member in women’s rowing. Sitting outside the general conference footprint, the University of Central Oklahoma joined the GNAC in 2019 as an affiliate member in women’s rowing.
Cal Poly Humboldt and Seattle University were charter members of the conference. Cal Poly Humboldt left the GNAC following the 2005-06 season to join the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) and was an affiliate member in football until 2018. Seattle University departed following the 2007-08 season to compete in NCAA Division I.
Past affiliate members of the GNAC include Azusa Pacific University (football), Utah Tech (Dixie State University) (football), University of Mary (men’s soccer), University of Sioux Falls (men’s soccer), South Dakota Mines (football & men’s soccer) and UC San Diego (rowing).
Concordia University-Portland joined the GNAC in 2014 and was recognized as a full NCAA Division II member in 2017. The university closed permanently following the 2019-20 academic year.
Athletic & Academic Champions
GNAC teams have won eight national championships. Former GNAC member Seattle University won the 2004 NCAA Division II men’s soccer national title before moving up to the Division I level. Seattle Pacific won the 2008 national championship in women’s soccer and was the national runner-up in 2005. The Western Washington men’s basketball program claimed the 2012 Division II national title. The Vikings’ women’s soccer program won national titles in 2016 and 2022 and was the runner up in 2019. The GNAC also claimed three women's rowing titles in a four-year span from 2021-24. Central Oklahoma won its third consecutive women’s rowing national championship in 2021 and its first as an affiliate member of the GNAC. Cal Poly Humboldt hoisted the 2023 women's rowing national trophy and Western Washington won the team title in 2024. It was the Vikings' ninth women's rowing national championship under the guidance of former head coach John Fuchs and first competing as a member of the GNAC.
Earning second-place national finishes have been Alaska Anchorage in volleyball (2016) and women's basketball (2016), Seattle Pacific in women’s soccer (2005), women’s basketball (2005) and women’s cross country (2007), Cal Poly Humboldt in women’s rowing (2025) and Western Washington in volleyball (2007 & 2018), women’s soccer (2019), women's basketball (2022), women's rowing (2022) and softball (2024).
In addition to team national championships, GNAC athletes have collected 65 individual national titles in the sports of cross country and track & field. A total of 12 women and one distance medley relay team have won 18 indoor track & field national titles, and four men and two distance medley relay teams have won eight indoor national titles. In outdoor track & field, there have been 13 different women totaling 21 national gold medals, and 10 men totaling 13 national gold medals in the history of the conference.
A complete listing of national champions, national athletes and scholar athletes of the year, national coaches of the year, and other major national award winners
can be found online here.