PacWest Magazine TV Show makes 2009-10 debut on OC-16 this evening at 7 p.m. HST

PacWest Magazine TV Show makes 2009-10 debut on OC-16 at 7 p.m. HST

HONOLULU, HI - Beginning Tuesday, Oct. 27, PacWest Magazine returns for its third season of airing on OC-16 in Hawai‘i. The show features the people and places from around the Pacific West Conference.

The first installment will air on OC-16 at 7 p.m. HST and will be available for viewing on the station's website at www.oc16.tv.

Commissioner Bob Hogue, Director of Compliance Wayne Coito, and Hawai‘i Pacific University Professor Malia Smith serve as hosts of the show.

"We are excited to feature many of the conference athletic directors in this year's shows," Hogue, who spearheaded the project during his first year as commissioner, said. "Plus, Wayne Coito is back with his popular PacWest Spotlights. Our cameras have taken us from Oahu to Hilo to the Bay Area to the Desert Southwest showing the diversity of the Pacific West Conference."

The 2009-10 debut will feature Dexter Irvin, the new athletic director at Hawai‘i Hilo who arrived in the islands from Utah where he served as the athletic director at Dixie State.

The program also will feature Ashley Hardin, the Grand Canyon University women's basketball standout who serves as the chair of the PacWest Student Athlete Advisory Council.

Then journey to San Francisco where Academy of Art claims its first PacWest women's soccer victory, while at Chaminade friends and family cheer on a freshman. Dixie State soccer, HPU's other campus, and highlights from around the league.

The PacWest

More than four years ago, seven NCAA Division II programs banded together to revive a briefly dormant league, marking the rebirth of the Pacific West Conference.

In a short time the PacWest has launched back to prominence thanks to national-caliber athletic programs, automatic qualifiers, the addition of baseball as a conference sport, and the rise to a nine-team league.

The largest geographic conference in Division II saw its rebirth begin in the fall of 2006 when the league began competition in men's and women's soccer for the first time. Women's basketball also became a league sport, complementing men's golf, women's tennis, men's and women's cross country, men's basketball and softball which had been PacWest staples for several years.

Grand Canyon University in Arizona, Dixie State College of Utah and Notre Dame de Namur University in California teamed up with longtime Hawaii-based PacWest programs Chaminade University of Honolulu, Brigham Young University Hawaii, the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo and Hawai‘i Pacific University to reform a conference that fell silent for one year.

In 2009-10, Dominican University of California and Academy of Art University have joined the PacWest schedule as they compete for conference championships.

PacWest teams play a pivotal role both in the NCAA II West Region and on the national stage. BYU-Hawaii tennis along with Chaminade's prominent appearance in the predominantly Division I men's basketball Maui Invitational are just a few of the highly visible programs that compete in the conference.

The BYU-Hawaii men's basketball team enters the 2009-10 campaign ranked number one in the nation, while Dixie State softball earned a berth in the Division II World Series last spring. NDNU men's soccer and BYU-Hawaii volleyball each claimed berths in the NCAA post-season in the fall of 2008.

This fall, Hawai‘i Hilo volleyball, Dixie St. women's soccer and Grand Canyon men's soccer all are making regional noise as they clamor for a shot at national playoffs.

Each year, the PacWest crowns champions in 11 conference sports. In the fall, titles in men's and women's soccer, women's volleyball, and men's and women's cross country are decided, while the winter season is the domain of men's and women's basketball. In the spring, the league celebrates champions in women's tennis, men's golf, softball and baseball.

Following the 2004-05 campaign, the Pacific West Conference lost a pair of programs in Western New Mexico and Montana State-Billings to slip below the mandated six-team minimum that comprises an official NCAA II league. With it went the automatic qualifiers for post-season play.

However, the four schools off the Mainland competed together as an unofficial conference, playing each other in the sport of basketball so many times that game films quickly became obsolete. The perseverance of Chaminade, BYU-Hawaii, Hawai‘i Pacific and Hawai‘i Hilo kept the core of a proud tradition intact until league was redrawn on the Division II map.

And it is a big map.

From the Southwest to the Pacific Rim, the PacWest redeems a ton of frequent flyer miles, but its travel plans have its teams landing in major metropolitan markets established Division II leagues can't match.

The schools in Hawai‘i have a natural appeal to the local media and community because they turn out quality athletic programs in a focused market.

NDNU calls Belmont, CA, home. It is situated midway between the two major media and population centers of San Francisco and San Jose. The addition of Academy of Art in San Francisco and Dominican in San Rafael, CA, gives the PacWest three schools in the Bay Area.

Dixie State is located in the southwest corner of Utah in St. George, not too far across the Nevada border from Las Vegas. The college draws interest from Salt Lake City and Provo.

Grand Canyon University has been in the Division II ranks for a number of years. The Antelopes have a rich tradition of basketball, baseball and soccer, and have one of the largest markets in the nation with their location in Phoenix.

Bob Hogue leads the PacWest conference from his office in Hawai‘i. Now in his third year, the former state senator replaced Woody Hahn who retired after serving as the commissioner since the early 1990s. Hogue has brought innovation and leadership to the conference.

Tom Di Camillo, who spent more than 16 years as the sports information director at Division II West Chester University of Pennsylvania, is now in his fourth year as assistant commissioner for media relations for the league. Di Camillo is based in suburban Phoenix, giving the conference a presence on the Mainland.

In July of 2009, Di Camillo became just the third non-Division I sports information director in nearly 50 years elected to serve in the presidential rotation of the College Sports Information Directors of America. He will become the first Division II SID to serve as president of CoSIDA in 2012-13 and just the second from a non-Division I conference or institution in the history of the organization.

Wayne Coito, who served as an intern in the conference for a year, began his term as the compliance and external affairs director in the summer of 2008. He coordinates production of the PacWest Magazine.