<p>The Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference was formed in 1915 when five Southern California institutions combined for the purpose of promoting and governing competition in intercollegiate sports with the fundamental principle of the conference being to encourage the highest ideals of amateur sports in an environment of high academic standards. These schools were the California Institute of Technology, Occidental College, Pomona College, University of Redlands, and Whittier College. </p>
<p>The membership has varied over the years, but all five of the original SCIAC schools are still currently members. Occidental and Redlands are, however, the only ones to have uninterrupted membership. The following is a chronology of the membership changes over the years: </p>
<p>Occidental's tradition of winning football dates back to 1894, when Oxy fielded one of the first college football teams in Southern California. The Occidental-Pomona football game, first played in 1895, is the region's oldest college football rivalry. (The upstart USC-UCLA game didn't begin until 1929.) The 1895 squad completed its season undefeated (including a 10-0 victory over USC), a feat repeated in 1912, 1913, and most memorably in 1948, when the Tigers went 9-0 and finished the season with a dramatic come from-behind victory over heavily favored Colorado A&M in the 1949 Raisin Bowl.</p>