The Coastal Carolina University Alumni Association was founded in 1976 as a unified effort to maintain contact with and plan activities and services for former students of what was then Coastal Carolina College, a branch campus of the University of South Carolina.

In those early years, Coastal's alumni were a close-knit group. Until 1974, when the college began granting four-year degrees, most students were from within a five-county radius of the campus. The development of the Alumni Association was a natural result of the institution's progress. Enrollment increased throughout the 1980s with the arrival of students from many parts of the country. In 1993, the college left the USC system to establish its own identity as Coastal Carolina University, an independent, state-supported institution.

Today, alumni live in nearly every state of the nation and in numerous foreign countries. Opportunities for alumni have expanded to include a yearlong calendar of events for varying constituent groups and for the entire 18,000-alumni body.