Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Weekly Trivia: Conference Charter Members

Last week's trivia question, "Before this four year run started in 2006, how many years did it take the SEC to win four national championships?" (In other words, if you start with 2005, how many years do you have to go back until the SEC has won four national championships?) was correctly answered by an anonymous visitor. An SEC team won the national championship in 2003 (LSU), 1998 (Tennessee), 1996 (Florida), and 1992 (Alabama). In total, that makes 14 years. However, as you may recall, the 2003 title was a split national championship (AP voted USC number 1). You have to go back to 1980 (Georgia) for the SEC to have four AP national championships.

Moving on, this summer we had some changes announced regarding conference affiliation. Nebraska will make the move to the Big Ten next year. This week's question is:
What 7 schools were the charter members of the Western Conference (which evolved into the Big Ten) in 1896?
Leave your answer in the comments section. The answer will be revealed next Wednesday when a new question is asked.

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3 comments:

  1. Minnesota
    Wisconsin
    Northwestern
    Iowa
    Illinois
    Chicago
    Purdue

    The conference was officially named the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives. This remained the official name until 1987, when the conference formally adopted the name "Big Ten".

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  2. Purdue
    Northwestern
    University of Chicago
    Illinois
    Wisconsin
    Michigan
    Minnesota

    Purdue president Dr. James Smart convened the meeting in Chicago for the purpose of forming the Conference to better regulate rules and to discipline infractions in intercollegiate athletics.

    The official name was the 'Western Conference' as that was the West back then (hence Northwestern's name).

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  3. Both Anonymous responses are impressive, and thank you for the additional historical information. However, the second response is the correct one.

    Michigan, not Iowa was a charter member of the Western Conference, along with:

    Wisconsin
    Northwestern
    Chicago
    Minnesota
    Illinois
    Purdue.

    Iowa joined in 1900.

    Wisconsin won the conference championship that inagural year.

    ReplyDelete