Azusa Pacific is coming to town, what does that mean for Chapman?
Photo Courtesy of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
Chapman University’s sports teams will soon have another rival to battle with, heightening the competitive level of Division III athletics in Southern California.
Azusa Pacific University will be joining the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) as the 10th member of the league. It was announced on March 17, and will be the first time the conference has expanded since Chapman joined in May of 2011.
In order to be completely considered reclassified as a Division III school, Azusa will need to go through the NCAA’s reclassification process. They will be a full fledged participant in all SCIAC activities by the 2028-29 school year, but could also be integrated into conference scheduling as soon as 2026.
Before dropping down to DIII and joining the Panthers in the SCIAC, Azusa was a member of the DII Pacific West Conference, better known as the PacWest. With only four teams located locally in Southern California, Azusa needed to take flights to play games both in Northern California and Hawaii, taking a toll financially on the school and mentally on the players.
Joining the SCIAC will help ease the financial burden of travel on Azusa, and the toll it can take on their players. It will do the same for Chapman, as it creates one less non-conference game they have to schedule for all sports..
Terry Boesel, Chapman’s director of athletics, expressed his thoughts on Azusa joining the conference, emphasizing how great he thinks it will be for scheduling.
“I love it, I think it's positive,” Boesel said. “It’s another Division III school we can bus to and not have to get on a plane for.”
Azusa currently has 18 varsity sports, but that number will jump to 19 when they bring back their football program in the fall of 2026. The program was discontinued in 2020, but their move to the SCIAC has opened the door for its return. They will be able to schedule games within the SCIAC league but won’t be able to compete for a SCIAC Championship until the full integration of the school in the 2028-29 school year.
One change Azusa is going to have to learn to live without is scholarship money for their athletes. A big draw for DII schools over DIII schools is the money that coaches are allowed to offer players, and because Azusa no longer has that resource it could create a problem for recruitment in the future.
In his interview with The Panther, Boesel said that Azusa can’t compete for a SCIAC conference championship until they’ve completely phased out their scholarship players. But, Azusa won’t be able to schedule many DII matchups anymore, and so Boesel said that Chapman plans to include them in scheduling right away, in hopes of being “good neighbors.”
Boesel outlined the multi-year process of a school transitioning from DII to DIII. Through 2025-26 Azusa remains a Division II school and will not be scheduled. In 2026-27 once they move down, Chapman might play them one time in a non-conference portion of the season, even though they may still have their roster.
For 2027-28 the plan is to start getting into a regular season rotation with Azusa, scheduling them twice that year. Finally in 2028-29 they’re officially integrated, reclassified and become eligible for SCIAC conference championships and NCAA.
Since the Azusa Cougars haven't had a football team since 2020, they don’t have any scholarship players for the program, making their transition into conference play a little more simple than the rest of the sports at the school.
Boesel said that the football team will be in the regular scheduling rotation in the fall of 2026, even though they can’t officially win the conference championship until 2028-29 due to NCAA rules.
Azusa isn’t the only SCIAC team reviving its football program. The Whittier University Poets announced the return of their team for the 2026-27 school year, following two years of not having a program. Thanks to the efforts of dedicated alumni Whittier managed to raise more than $814,000 to support in hiring a head coach and staff, new branding and funding initiatives to help attract new high level recruits to their school.
The addition of two new programs to the SCIAC league will be nothing but helpful when it comes to scheduling games, according to Boesel. With nine teams in the SCIAC, and California Technical Institute, Occidental College and previously Whittier not having teams, it made scheduling football games almost impossible due to having a six team conference. Boesel says adding both the Poet and Cougar football programs back into the league will help make scheduling easier in the future.
Boesel says that with eight schools now with football programs in the SCIAC, each team will play seven conference games, two non-conference games and then one more game with a SCIAC school that doesn’t count for conference standings.
Chapman has been battling at the top of the conference in all sports these past few years. Last season, football won the conference title and finished runner-up this year, while men’s soccer finished runner-up in their tournament as well. The Panthers also finished third at the swimming and diving championships.
Adding a former DII school into the mix is bound to turn up the heat, according to Boesel, making it even more of a challenge and accomplishment to bring home silverware in the SCIAC.
“They’ve usually been strong in most of their sports in Division II,” he said. “I think it’s gonna add a competitive nature for sure.”
With these new changes to the conference, Chapman will be facing more, and potentially stronger, opponents than they’ve seen in the past and it will be each team's job to rise to the challenge.