Rice University Southwest Conference Faculty Representative records (Jim Castaneda)

The Southwest Conference (SWC) was a college athletic conference in the United States that became defunct in May of 1996. It consisted of schools in the states of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Jim Castaneda, Rice faculty member and golf coach, served as the Faculty Representative for the SWC. In 1997 the official records of the conference from 1914 to 1996 were moved from Dallas to the campus of Texas Tech University, becoming part of the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library. The archive also contains an extensive assortment of images and memorabilia from each member university. Rice University moved to the Western Athletic Conference when SWC closed, and is now a member of Conference USA. Conference USA, officially abbreviated C-USA, is a college athletic conference whose member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA was founded in 1995 by the merger of the Metro Conference and Great Midwest Conference, two Division I conferences that did not sponsor football. The conference immediately started competition in all sports, including football. [Partially excerpted from wikipedia, July 10, 2007. ]