January 16, 1886: The 1st College Football Game On the West Coast

The Cal football team, 1886

January 16, 1886: For the 1st time, a college football game is played on America's West Coast. The game is played at West Field, on the campus of the University of California's main campus in Berkeley, in the San Francisco Bay Area's East Bay region. The University -- usually known as "Cal" for sports purposes, and as "Berkeley" for everything else -- beat a club team named the Wasps, 20-2.

In 1891, Stanford University opened in Palo Alto, across the Bay, on the Peninsula between San Francisco and San Jose. The following year, March 19, 1892, Cal and Stanford played each other in football for the 1st time. Stanford won, 14-10. The game was played in San Francisco, at Recreation Park, every year until 1903. Thereafter, "The Big Game" has been held in Berkeley in even-numbered years, and Palo Alto in odd-numbered years.

In 1915, Cal became a founding member of the Pacific Coast Conference, along with the Universities of Oregon and Washington, and Oregon State College (renamed Oregon State University in 1961). Washington State College joined in 1917 (and was renamed Washington State University in 1959). Stanford joined in 1918. The University of Southern California (USC) and the University of Idaho joined in 1922, the University of Montana in 1924, and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1928.

In 1959, the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU) was founded, with Cal, UCLA, USC and Washington as charter members. Stanford joined shortly thereafter, and the league was informally named the Big Five. Washington State joined in 1962, making it (still unofficially) the Big Six.

In 1964, Oregon and Oregon State joined, and the name was officially changed to the Pacific 8, or Pac-8. (Unlike the Big Eight, the Big Ten and the Big Twelve, the name has always officially had the numeral, not the word for the number.) In 1978, Arizona and Arizona State joined from the Western Athletic Conference (WAC), and the league became the Pacific-10 or Pac-10. In 2011, the Universities of Colorado (from the Big 12) and Utah (from the Mountain West) joined, making it the Pacific-12 or Pac-12.

In terms of National Championships, across all sports, the Pac-12 was the most successful college sports league. Emblematic of this was USC in football, UCLA in basketball, and Oregon in track & field. And it had some of the best rivalries, especially in football: The aforementioned Big Game between Cal and Stanford, the USC-UCLA rivalry, the Duel in the Desert between the Arizona schools, the Civil War between the Oregon schools, and the Apple Cup between the Washington schools.

UPDATE: Money talks, and it pronounced a death sentence on the Pac-12. In 2022, UCLA and USC, long the leaders of Pac-10 and -12 football in the Rose Bowl against the Big 10 Champions, announced they would leave the Pac-12 for the Big 10, starting in 2024. In 2023, all also for 2024: Oregon and Washington announced they would also bolt for the Big 10; while Arizona, Arizona State and Utah announced they were going to the Big 12; and, perhaps most ridiculous of all, given the geography and the nomenclature, Cal and Stanford announced they were joining the Atlantic Coast Conference.

This leaves Oregon State and Washington State as the only teams left in the league still officially known as the Pac-12. As of December 1, 2023, it was not yet known whether the former "Power Five conference" would be able to take in schools from what college basketball fans would call "mid-major" leagues.

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January 16, 1886 was a Saturday. Baseball and football were out of season. Basketball did not yet exist, and hockey barely did. Even England's Football League hadn't been formed yet. There were, however, FA Cup games, in the 5th round. Small Heath Alliance, the team that would become Birmingham City, bean Davenham, 2-1 in Davenham, Cheshire. Swifts, of Slough, Berkshire beat Church, 6-2 in the town of Church, Lancashire.

And Burslem Port Vale, the Stoke-on-Trent team now known as simply Port Vale, beat Brentwood, of Brentwood, Essex, 2-1. However, that match was declared void. Two weeks later, the replay ended 4-4. Port Vale chose not to play a 2nd replay, and Brentwood advanced to the Quarterfinals.

Blackburn Rovers, of Lancashire, won the tournament.