Let’s be real. That Western Athletic Conference? Old news. Everybody’s talking about the brand new West Coast Conference. And boy, do they have a lot to say.

Andy Fee, the newly minted deputy athletic director of Seattle U, is already on California time. Actually, everyone is on California time (it’s the same time zone as Seattle U).

“Travel will be much easier. One thing is we just get to stay in the same time zone, which may not sound like a lot, but it is. And also distances, obviously, San Diego is down the coast, but it’s an easy direct flight. We’re not going to have any weird bus rides, longer bus rides to get from the airport to some of these schools in Texas,” Fee said.

No more crossing over into Texas time zones has student athletes excited. Another point of excitement is evident to anyone who’s ever been in a large class where people share where they’re from and heard seven “I’m from the Bay”s in a row.

“We recruit nationally and internationally, but a lot of our student athletes are up and down the West Coast. So their familiarity with the West Coast conference teams, Pepperdine, Santa Clara, USF, San Diego, Gonzaga, they’re very familiar with those, and they have a lot of friends that go to those schools. So they’re excited to compete on an ongoing basis,” Fee said.

Myah Polzin, a second-year kinesiology major and forward on the women’s soccer team, hails from Oakland and is one of those excited students.

“Having come from the Bay, having lived there for like five years, it’s super exciting to go back to California to compete against some of the teams like Pepperdine, LMU, St. Mary’s, USF,” Polzin said.

The bevy of new competitors in the WCC is not quite the same as it was when the conference change was initially announced. Grand Canyon University will not be joining and Oregon State will be departing alongside Washington State after Seattle U’s first year. Fee is not concerned about realignment ripples rocking the Redhawk raft.

“The WCC is a league that schools want to be a part of,” Fee said. “There are other schools up and down the West Coast which have quietly expressed interest in joining the league, which obviously isn’t a Seattle U decision, but we, the Royal We, I think feel very confident about the future of the West Coast Conference.”

Not only are Seattle U’s athletes confident about the conference’s future, but they’re confident that the school’s teams are ready for the level of athletic prowess on the WCC stage.

For John Christofilis, a fourth-year communication and media major and redshirt junior guard on the men’s basketball team, the WCC will be the third NCAA conference he’s played in. The WCC follows time spent at Creighton in the Big East and his three years of WAC competition.

“We’re more than prepared for the West Coast Conference, and I’m excited to see what we can do this year,” Christofilis said. “We’ve been working our tails off all season… There might be some nerves coming out initially, but, I mean, those will go away pretty quick.”

Conversations around the challenges ahead are taking place on the basketball court and the soccer field. Women’s soccer is squarely focused on staying healthy as they face new foes.

“Honestly, we had a conversation with our team today about this, and we don’t expect such a big change in at least competition level,” Polzin said. “We’re just preparing ourselves even more health-wise mentality going into the WAC and seeing those teams no different than we would prepare ourselves for competing against anyone in [the] WAC.”

The athletes are ready. Representatives of Seattle U Athletics are headed to California to participate in the school’s first meeting as a full voting member since voluntarily departing in 1980. There’s just one more group that needs to get ready for the fall return of Redhawk sports—the fans.

“To the Redhawk fans, Redhawk Nation, come out and support. Like, we’re playing some awesome names,” Christofilis said. “We are going to put on a show. We are going to represent this university in the right way.”

Students, get out your sunglasses and Rudy paraphernalia. We’ve got a new conference to take on.