The North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) is an NCAA Division III athletic conference composed of colleges located in Ohio and Indiana. When founded in 1984, the league was a pioneer in gender equality, offering competition in a then-unprecedented 10 women's sports. Today it remains true to that legacy, sponsoring 23 sports, 11 for men and 12 for women. The NCAC is respected for the academic strength of its member institutions — all of which have Phi Beta Kappa chapters. In its most recent college rankings, U.S. News & World Report recognized all 10 members as top-tier liberal arts colleges, and ranked five NCAC institutions among the nation's top 70 such colleges. History The formation of the NCAC was announced at joint news conferences in Cleveland, Columbus and Pittsburgh in February 1983. Allegheny College, Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), Denison University, Kenyon College, Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University, and The College of Wooster were charter members in 1984, the same year that NCAC athletic conference play began. In 1988, Earlham College and Wittenberg College accepted invitations to join the NCAC, pushing conference membership to nine schools in three states. The two schools would begin play in the fall of 1989. In 1998, Hiram College, and Wabash College accepted invitations to join the NCAC, pushing conference membership to 10 schools in three states, which both schools began play in the fall of 1999. Case Western Reserve, a charter member of the NCAC, announced that it would leave the NCAC following the 1998–99 academic year. The Spartans would compete on a full-time basis in the University Athletic Association (UAA) after more than a decade of joint conference membership affiliation. Earlham announced it would depart the NCAC for the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC), beginning with the 2010–11 season. DePauw University became the 10th member of the NCAC beginning in the 2011–12 season. The most recent change to the NCAC membership was announced on August 23, 2021. Allegheny left the NCAC after the 2021–22 school year to return to its former home of the Presidents' Athletic Conference. It remains a single-sport NCAC member in field hockey, a sport the PAC does not sponsor. Chronological timeline 1983 - In February 1983, the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) was founded. Charter members included Allegheny College, Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), Denison University, Kenyon College, Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University and The College of Wooster, effective beginning