Big Ten Conference

Big Ten Conference
Data
Established	1896
Members	11
Sports fielded	25 (12 men's, 13 women's)
Region	Midwestern United States
States	8 - Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin
Past names	Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives, Big Nine, Western Conference
Headquarters	Park Ridge, Illinois

The Big Ten Conference is the United States' oldest Division I college athletic conferences. Its member institutions are located mostly in the Midwestern 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.

Members

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

University of Illinois (co-founder 1896)
The University of Minnesota (co-founder 1896)
Northwestern University (co-founder 1896)
Purdue University (co-founder 1896)
University of Wisconsin (co-founder 1896)
Indiana University (joined 1899)
The University of Iowa (joined 1899)
The Ohio State University (joined 1912)
The University of Michigan (co-founder 1896, withdrew 1908, rejoined 1917)
Michigan State University (joined 1950, began play 1953)
The Pennsylvania State University (joined 1990, began play 1993)

Former member of the conference:

The University of Chicago (co-founder 1896, withdrew 1946; yet remains member of the CIC.)

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

Lake Forest College

The Big Ten is the only Division I 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	29,642
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	51,194
Northwestern University	Evanston, Illinois	1851	Private/Non-sectarian	13,407
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

Logos

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. For years, Notre Dame had sought official entry into the league but was never extended an invitation. However, in 1999, both Notre Dame and the Big 10 entered into private negotiations concerning a possible membership that would include Notre Dame. The conference extended a formal invitation to Notre Dame in 1999. Although the Notre Dame faculty senate endorsed the idea with a near unanimous vote, the ND board of trustees voted against joining the conference and Notre Dame ultimately declined the Big Ten's invitation.^* 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.

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-

Rivalries

Big Ten football

The members of the Big Ten have long-standing rivalries with each other, especially on the football field. Each school has at least one traveling trophy at stake. Some Big Ten rivalries include (with their respective traveling trophy in parentheses):

Illinois-Northwestern (Sweet Sioux Tomahawk)
Purdue-Indiana (Old Oaken Bucket)
Indiana-Michigan State (Old Brass Spittoon)
Iowa-Minnesota (Floyd of Rosedale)
Iowa-Wisconsin (Heartland Trophy)
Wisconsin-Minnesota (Paul Bunyan's Axe)
Michigan-Michigan State (Paul Bunyan Trophy)
Michigan-Minnesota (Little Brown Jug)
Illinois-Ohio State (Illibuck)
Illinois-Purdue (Purdue Cannon)
Penn State-Minnesota (Governor's Victory Bell)
Penn State-Michigan State (Land Grant Trophy)
Michigan-Ohio State (No trophy) Called the greatest rivalry in sports by ESPN ^*.

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)

Although the pick order usually corresponds to the conference standings, the bowls are not required to make their choices strictly according to the won-lost records; many factors influence bowl selections, especially the turnout of the fans for past bowl games.

List of Big Ten Conference football champions

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.

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.

Conference facilities

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

External links

Big Ten Conference | ビッグテンカンファレンス | บิ๊กเทน | 十大联盟

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