ABOUT US / COMPANY PROFILE

The Pacific West Athletic Association was founded by James Wright, a retired 20-year Veteran of the United States Air Force.  James first got into Sports and Athletics in 1990, as an assistant coach to his unit’s basketball team, then proceeded to become the Head Coach the year after.  Since then, he has coached over 50 military basketball teams throughout Hawaii, and several overseas countries including Turkey, Korea, England, Japan, Qatar, Italy and Germany.  James is currently coaching the Nellis Air Force Base Men’s Team, along with two civilian women’s travel teams, with one team comprise of a current WNBA Assistant Coach, two WNBA and many overseas players.  

In 2005, he organized and founded the Las Vegas Armed Forces Basketball Tournament, which now is the second largest military basketball tournament in the world, held each year during President’s Day weekend in February.  The tournament began in 2006 with only 6 teams, and currently host over 30 teams ranging from Navy and Marines in California, Army in Texas, and Air Force from several states throughout the U.S.  Then later in 2006, he founded the Pacific West Military Athletic Conference consisting of over 25 Men and Women based Armed Forces teams from California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas.  His vision of creating this league was to support the young men and women athletics and give them an opportunity to participate in sports competition greatly higher than their particular base could provide.   Since the league inception, the league has grown from 4 teams, to its current 25, with the league going into its 5th season. 

The Pacific West Athletic Association does host several smaller events throughout the year as well.

Our goal and mission is to give back to the military community, while giving the local community free entertainment, giving them a chance to support and watch their Armed Forces Men and Women compete in friendly, but fierce competition free to the local community.  

This year, the Association gave back to the local community by sponsoring and supplying a little league baseball team and their coaches with Team T-shirts, and plans to reach out even more to the community with youth basketball camps, adult basketball leagues, provide professional sports officials and scorekeepers for sporting events, and local fund raising events for youth athletics, military veterans and non-profit organizations that give back to the Las Vegas communities.