Western Washington University - Athletics

Athletics

• In 2011-12, approximately 350 students are participating in 15 varsity sports at Western, six for men and nine for women. WWU has been an official member of NCAA Division II since September 1998.
• In 2010-11, WWU placed seventh among 310 NCAA Division II schools in the Sports Director’s Cup national all-sports standings, the second-highest finish in school history. The Vikings were sixth in 2009-10 and 10th in 2008-09. WWU has had eight straight Top 50 finishes and been among the Top 100 in each of its first 13 seasons as a NCAA II member.
• WWU won the 2011-12 NCAA Division II men’s basketball national championship, just the second collegiate crown in that sport in state of Washington history and the first since 1976.
• WWU has won seven straight Division II national titles in women's rowing from 2005 to 2011. The Vikings are the first NCAA school in any division to achieve that distinction.

• In 2010-11, Western won its third straight and seventh overall Great Northwest Athletic Conference All-Sports championship, taking league titles in volleyball, men’s golf and women’s golf, and the regular-season crown in women’s basketball. The Vikings, who won the Northwest Collegiate Rowing Conference championship, placed second in men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s outdoor track, men’s indoor track and softball.
• And Western student-athletes also were involved in community projects during the 2010-11 school year, raising nearly $9,000 for The American Cancer Society Relay for Life, and $2,000 for the PeaceHealth Cancer Center in Bellingham.
• Western placed second nationally in volleyball in 2007, and reached the national semifinals in men's basketball in 2001 and women's basketball in 2000.
• WWU ranks among the top 15 in women’s basketball victories among all four-year schools with that program making 12 NCAA tournament appearances in 13 years. The Vikings had the fourth-longest league volleyball winning streak in NCAA II of 57 from 2002-04. WWU, which won the NAIA national softball title in 1998, had a 38-game victory string in women's soccer from 1982-84.
• The 2010 NCAA graduation rate study showed that 69 percent of Western student-athletes receive their degrees in six years or less based on the Federal Graduation Rate formula, a rate the same as that of the full student body. This is 13 percentage points higher than the average for NCAA Division II schools nationally and 15 points higher than the average for the nine U.S. schools in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
• Using the NCAA Academic Success Rate, which includes all freshman student-athletes from the fall of 2003 and also accounts for student-athletes who transfer into or out of the institution, Western posted an 85 percent success rate, compared to the NCAA II national number of 73 percent. The average ASR of the nine U.S. GNAC schools was 77 percent.