Big Ten Conference
The Big Ten Conference is a collegiate athletic conference located in the northern United States, stretching from Iowa in the west to Pennsylvania in the east. The conference competes in the NCAA's Division I-A.Despite its name, there are eleven teams in the conference:
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (joined 1895)
- Indiana University at Bloomington (joined 1899)
- University of Iowa (joined 1899)
- University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (joined 1895, left 1907, rejoined 1917)
- Michigan State University (joined 1950, began play 1953)
- University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (joined 1895)
- Northwestern University (joined 1895)
- Ohio State University at Columbus (joined 1912)
- Pennsylvania State University, University Park (joined 1990, began play 1993)
- Purdue University (joined 1895)
- University of Wisconsin, Madison (joined 1895)
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, volleyball and wrestling.
The University of Chicago was a founding member of the Big Ten (1895-1939), but left when it decided to deemphasize varsity athletics just before World War II.
The Big Ten was founded in 1895 as the Intercollegiate of Faculty Representatives. It was also called the Western Conference, Big Nine (after Chicago left and before Michigan State joined). It did not formally adopt the name Big Ten until 1984 although the name was first used informally in 1912.
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