Pacific On The Rise: A Year of Change in College Sports
Photo by Mōhailani Peloso
While schools across the country are shrinking their athletic programs, Pacific is expanding its roster.
College sports are undergoing one of the most dramatic overhauls in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) history. With new rules surrounding athlete compensation, roster limits, and program structures, 2025 has quickly been defined as a year of change for college athletics. These reforms are reshaping how universities manage their teams and how athletes experience their sport. Instead of cutbacks, the University of the Pacific is responding to these shifts with bold growth and expansion.
The most significant change came in June 2025, when a federal judge approved the House v. NCAA settlement. Worth $2.8 billion, the agreement represents the largest change to the NCAA’s model in history. It eliminates long-standing restrictions on direct compensation and licensing for student-athletes. For the first time, a Division I school can distribute up to $20.5 million in its first year, a level of direct support the NCAA had resisted for decades. The settlement also established the College Sports Commission to enforce compliance, marking a significant departure from the traditional notion of amateurism in college athletics (AP News).
During that same summer, while schools across the country trimmed budgets and eliminated sports, the University of the Pacific took the opposite approach. Pacific announced the addition of men’s cross country and men’s track and field. The university also reinstated men’s and women’s diving and expanded women’s track events. These changes brought 82 new student-athletes and raised the Tigers’ total to 19 varsity programs (Pacific Newsroom; SwimSwam). Athletic Director Adam Tschuor, who took over in 2023, explained that the expansion was about “navigating change by growing instead of cutting,” a message that stood out at a time when many universities moved in the opposite direction (Pacific Newsroom).
For student-athletes, this expansion created more opportunities to compete at the Division I level, particularly in sports that had often been overlooked. Diving, which many schools had cut over the last five years, returned to Pacific with new facilities and coaching staff. Track and cross country also introduced new visibility, giving the Tigers a chance to compete in events where the West Coast Conference had been gaining strength. Beyond competition, school leaders emphasized that the expansion also enhanced campus life by bringing in more students, creating a larger fan base at events, and supporting Pacific’s identity as a university that invests in athletics rather than scaling back (SwimSwam; SFGate).
Pacific’s decision to expand its athletics program is tied directly to the NCAA’s new roster model. Under the old system, programs operated under strict scholarship caps that often forced schools to make difficult decisions about how many athletes they could support. The House v. NCAA settlement replaced those caps with roster limits, allowing schools to divide aid among more athletes. For a mid-sized program like Pacific, which does not carry the financial burden of football, that flexibility presented a substantial advantage. It created room to invest in Olympic-style sports such as cross country, track, and diving, which could attract dozens of new athletes without the heavy costs of a major revenue sport. This framework enabled Pacific to expand its varsity lineup and increase student participation at a time when many institutions scaled back. While some universities eliminated teams to remain compliant with the new rules, Pacific used them to bring in 82 additional student-athletes and strengthen both enrollment and its presence in the West Coast Conference (AP News; Pacific Newsroom).
Looking ahead, Pacific’s expansion raises several important questions. One is how scholarships will be distributed fairly between the existing programs and the new ones, a balance that will be pivotal for maintaining equity across the athletic department. Another is whether
sports such as diving and track can quickly establish competitive footing in the West Coast Conference, where competition is already well developed. A final question is whether Pacific’s approach will remain an outlier or if other schools will adopt the same strategy, using the NCAA’s new model as an opportunity to add programs rather than cut them. The answers to these questions will determine not only the success of Pacific’s gamble but also whether it sparks a broader change in how colleges adapt to this new era of athletics.
In a year when the NCAA rewrote the rules of college sports, Pacific chose to write its own story. The university’s decision to add and revive programs instead of cutting them demonstrated how the same set of changes that strained many athletic departments also created opportunities. Whether this gamble results in competitive success or inspires other schools to follow remains to be seen. What is clear is that Pacific has staked out a bold identity in 2025, embracing the year of change as a chance to grow.