Big Ten Conference

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The Big Ten Conference is the United States' oldest college athletic conference. Its member institutions are located in the northern United States, stretching from Iowa and Minnesota in the west to Pennsylvania in the east. The conference competes in the NCAA's Division I-A in football. Member schools of the Big Ten conference are also members of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, a leading educational consortium. Despite the conference's name, since Penn State joined in 1990, there have been eleven schools in the Big Ten, as signified by the hidden "11" in the Big Ten Conference logo.

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Members

The conference's current member schools, ordered by length of continuous membership and alphabetically by each university's common name, are:

Former member of the conference:

Attended 1895 meeting but was not a member of the conference:

The Big Ten is the only conference to have all of its member institutions affiliated with the Association of American Universities, a prestigious collection of 60 research institutions, and leads all conferences in the total amount of research expenditures.

Member schools participate in baseball, men's and women's basketball, cross country, field hockey, football, golf, gymnastics, indoor and outdoor track, rowing, men's and women's soccer, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, women's volleyball and wrestling.

Institution Location Founded Affiliation Enrollment
University of Illinois Urbana and Champaign, Illinois 1867 Public 40,670
Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 1820 Public 37,958
University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa 1847 Public 38,945
University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan 1817 Public 39,000
Michigan State University East Lansing, Michigan 1855 Public 45,166
University of Minnesota Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota 1851 Public 42,481
Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois 1851 Private/Non-sectarian 13,595
Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio 1870 Public 50,504
Pennsylvania State University State College, Pennsylvania 1855 Public 41,289
Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana 1869 Public 38,653
University of Wisconsin Madison, Wisconsin 1848 Public 42,000
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Logos

Illinois Fighting Illini
Indiana Hoosiers
Iowa Hawkeyes
Michigan Wolverines
Michigan State Spartans
Minnesota Golden Gophers
Northwestern Wildcats
Ohio State Buckeyes
Penn State Nittany Lions
Purdue Boilermakers
Wisconsin Badgers
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History

A meeting of seven Midwest university presidents on January 11, 1895 at the Palmer House in Chicago to discuss the regulation and control of intercollegiate athletics. Those seven men, behind the leadership of James H. Smart, president of Purdue University, established the principles for which the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives, more popularly known as the Big Ten Conference, would be founded on the next year 1896.

Those seven universities were: University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Lake Forest College, University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin. Lake Forest was not at the 1896 meeting that established the Conference, it was replaced by the University of Michigan.

At the 1895 meeting, a blueprint for the control and administration of college athletics under the direction of appointed faculty representatives was outlined. The presidents' first-known action "restricted eligibility for athletics to bonafide, full-time students who were not delinquent in their studies." This helped limit some problems of the times, especially the participation of professional athletes and "non-students" in the university's regular sporting events.

The Big Ten was founded in 1896 as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives. The founding member schools included six current members as well as the University of Chicago.The first reference to the conference as The Big Nine was in 1899 after Iowa and Indiana had joined. The first reference to the conference as the Big Ten was in 1917 after Michigan rejoined following a 9-year absence; Ohio State had been added in 1912.

The conference was again known as the Big Nine after the University of Chicago decided to deemphasize varsity athletics just after World War II. Chicago discontinued its football program in 1939 and withdrew from the Conference in 1946. Chicago to this day continues its relationship with the conference as a member of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, the "academic Big Ten". In 1950, Michigan State joined and the conference was again known as the Big Ten. The Big Ten's membership would remain stable for the next 40 years.

The conference’s official name throughout the time was still the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives and was also known as the Western Conference. It did not formally adopt the name Big Ten until 1987 when it was incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation. When Penn State joined in the early 1990s, it was decided that the conference would continue to be called the Big Ten, but its logo was modified to reflect the change; the number 11 is disguised in the white areas of the traditionally blue "Big Ten" lettering.

Following the addition of previously independent Penn State, efforts were made to encourage the University of Notre Dame, the last remaining traditionally independent football powerhouse, to join the league. The conference extended a formal invitation to Notre Dame in 1999. Although the Notre Dame faculty senate endorsed the idea, the board of trustees voted against joining the conference and Notre Dame ultimately declined the Big Ten's invitation.[1] Though the idea has been revisited in the wake of the Atlantic Coast Conference's expansion to 12 teams, neither Notre Dame nor the Big Ten has taken any official action in pursuit of Notre Dame's membership. Notre Dame later joined the Big East conference in all sports except football, men's lacrosse, and men's hockey.

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Commissioners

The office of the commissioner of athletics was created in 1922 "to study athletic problems of the various member universities and assist in enforcing the eligibility rules which govern Big Ten athletics."

Name Years Notes
Major John L. Griffith 1922-1944 died in office
Kenneth L. "Tug" Wilson 1944-1961 retired
Bill Reed 1961-1971 died in office
Wayne Duke 1971-1989 retired
James E. Delany 1989-
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Rivalries

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Big Ten Football

The members of the Big Ten have long-standing rivalries with each other, especially on the football field. Many of them have travelling trophies at stake. Some Big Ten rivalries include (with their respective travelling trophy in parentheses):

As of 2006, the Big Ten champion has the Rose Bowl (a BCS bowl) tie in, and the following non-BCS bowl tie ins (picks are after BCS selections, i.e., if two Big Ten teams participate in BCS bowls, the bowl with the #1 pick will select the third team):

  • Capital One Bowl: Orlando, Florida (Big Ten #1 pick against SEC #1 pick)
  • Outback Bowl: Tampa, Florida (Big Ten #2 pick against SEC #2 pick)
  • Alamo Bowl: San Antonio, Texas (Big Ten #3 pick against Big 12 #3 pick)
  • Champs Sports Bowl: Orlando, Florida (Big Ten #4 pick against ACC #3 pick)
  • Insight Bowl: Tempe, Arizona (Big Ten #5 pick against Big 12 #5 pick)
  • Motor City Bowl: Detroit, Michigan (Big Ten #6 pick against MAC)

Notice that while the pick order usually corresponds to the standings in the conference, bowls do not have to pick according to the standings. Many factors influence bowl selections, including the turnout of the fans for past bowl games.

List of Big Ten Conference football champions

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Big Ten Men's Basketball

The Big Ten has always been a national powerhouse in men's basketball, having multiple championship winners and often sending four or more teams to the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Previous NCAA champions include Indiana with 5 titles, Michigan State with 2 titles, and Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio State each with one title.

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Other Rivalries

Purdue, Michigan State and Michigan are among the Big Ten teams who also have traditional rivalries with Notre Dame. Penn State had a long-standing rivalry with Pittsburgh of the Big East, but the two schools have not met since 2000. Penn State also had long-standing rivalries with West Virginia, Syracuse, and Rutgers of the Big East, Maryland and Boston College of the ACC, and football independent Temple. Penn State also had a rivalry with Notre Dame in the 1980s and early 1990s, which was ended when Penn State moved to the Big Ten, although the two schools will renew the series with a home-and-home series in 2006 at Notre Dame Stadium and in 2007 at Beaver Stadium. Iowa has an in-state rivalry with Iowa State, with the winner getting the Cy-Hawk Trophy. Indiana has an out-of conference rivalry with Kentucky, but the rivalry has a much higher profile in basketball than in football. Illinois has a long-standing basketball rivalry with Missouri, with the two men's teams squaring off annually in the "Braggin' Rights" game in St. Louis. In the early days of the Big Ten, the Chicago-Michigan game was played on Thanksgiving, usually with conference championship implications and was considered one of the first major rivalries of the conference.

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Conference Stadiums

School Football stadium Stadium capacity Basketball arena Arena capacity
Illinois Memorial Stadium 70,904 Assembly Hall 16,618
Indiana Memorial Stadium 52,180 Assembly Hall 17,456
Iowa Kinnick Stadium 70,585 Carver-Hawkeye Arena 15,500
Michigan Michigan Stadium 107,501 Crisler Arena 13,751
Michigan State Spartan Stadium 75,025* Breslin Student Events Center 14,992
Minnesota Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome 63,000 Williams Arena 14,321
Northwestern Ryan Field 49,256 Welsh-Ryan Arena 8,117
Ohio State Ohio Stadium 101,568 Value City Arena 19,500
Penn State Beaver Stadium 107,282 Bryce Jordan Center 15,261
Purdue Ross-Ade Stadium 62,500 Mackey Arena 14,123
Wisconsin Camp Randall Stadium 80,321 Kohl Center 17,142

(*) Expansion completed in 2005

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See also

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External links

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