Editing Ivy League (section)

====20th century====
In 1906, the organization that eventually became the [[NCAA|National Collegiate Athletic Association]] was formed, primarily to formalize rules for the emerging sport of football. But of the 39 original member colleges in the NCAA, only two of them (Dartmouth and Penn) later became Ivies. In February 1903, intercollegiate wrestling began when Yale accepted a challenge from Columbia, published in the Yale News. The dual meet took place prior to a basketball game hosted by Columbia and resulted in a tie.

Two years later, Penn and Princeton also added wrestling teams, leading to the formation of the student-run Intercollegiate Wrestling Association, now the [[Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association]] (EIWA), the first and oldest collegiate wrestling league in the US.<ref>{{cite news | title = Columbia Celebrates College Wrestling Centennial | publisher = Columbia College Today | url = http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/may03/features5.php | access-date = September 4, 2014 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20141010054526/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/may03/features5.php | archive-date = October 10, 2014 | url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[File:Yale-Princeton May 30 1882.jpg|thumb|A sketch of the Yale versus Princeton baseball game on May 30, 1882]]
Though schools now in Ivy League (such as Yale and Columbia) played against each other in the 1880s, it was not until 1930 that Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn, Princeton and Yale formed the [[Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League]]; they were later joined by Harvard, Brown, Army and Navy. Before the formal establishment of the Ivy League, there was an "unwritten and unspoken agreement among certain Eastern colleges on athletic relations". The earliest reference to the "Ivy colleges" came in 1933, when [[Stanley Woodward (editor)|Stanley Woodward]] of the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'' used it to refer to the eight current members plus Army.<ref name=officialhistory/> In 1935, the [[Associated Press]] reported on an example of collaboration between the schools:

{{blockquote|The athletic authorities of the so-called "Ivy League" are considering drastic measures to curb the increasing tendency toward riotous attacks on goal posts and other encroachments by spectators on playing fields.|The Associated Press|''The New York Times''<ref>{{cite news | agency = Associated Press | title = Colleges Searching for Check On Trend to Goal Post Riots | work = The New York Times | page = 33 | date = 1935-12-06 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1935/12/06/archives/colleges-searching-for-check-on-trend-to-goal-post-riots-eastern.html | access-date = July 23, 2018 | archive-date = July 24, 2018 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180724002313/https://www.nytimes.com/1935/12/06/archives/colleges-searching-for-check-on-trend-to-goal-post-riots-eastern.html | url-status = live }}</ref>}}

Despite such collaboration, the universities did not seem to consider the formation of the league as imminent. [[Romeyn Berry]], Cornell's manager of athletics, reported the situation in January 1936 as follows:

{{blockquote|text=I can say with certainty that in the last five years—and markedly in the last three months—there has been a strong drift among the eight or ten universities of the East which see a good deal of one another in sport toward a closer bond of confidence and cooperation and toward the formation of a common front against the threat of a breakdown in the ideals of amateur sport in the interests of supposed expediency.

Please do not regard that statement as implying the organization of an Eastern conference or even a poetic "Ivy League". That sort of thing does not seem to be in the cards at the moment.<ref>{{cite news | first = Robert F. | last = Kelley | title = Cornell Club Here Welcomes Lynah | work = The New York Times | page = 22 | date = 1936-01-17}}</ref>}}

Within a year of this statement and having held month-long discussions about the proposal, on December 3, 1936, the idea of "the formation of an Ivy League" gained enough traction among the undergraduate bodies of the universities that the ''[[Columbia Daily Spectator]]'', ''[[The Cornell Daily Sun]]'', ''[[The Dartmouth]]'', ''[[The Harvard Crimson]]'', ''[[The Daily Pennsylvanian]]'', ''[[The Daily Princetonian]]'' and the ''[[Yale Daily News]]'' would simultaneously run an editorial entitled "Now Is the Time", encouraging the seven universities to form the league in an effort to preserve the ideals of athletics.<ref>{{cite news | title = Immediate Formation of Ivy League Advocated at Seven Eastern Colleges | work = The New York Times | page = 33 | date = December 3, 1936}}</ref> Part of the editorial read as follows:

{{blockquote|The Ivy League exists already in the minds of a good many of those connected with football, and we fail to see why the seven schools concerned should be satisfied to let it exist as a purely nebulous entity where there are so many practical benefits which would be possible under definite organized association. The seven colleges involved fall naturally together by reason of their common interests and similar general standards and by dint of their established national reputation they are in a particularly advantageous position to assume leadership for the preservation of the ideals of intercollegiate athletics.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=456169 |title=The Harvard Crimson :: News :: AN EDITORIAL |publisher=Thecrimson.com |date=1936-12-03 |access-date=2011-01-30 |archive-date=October 16, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071016204452/http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=456169 |url-status=dead }}</ref>}}

The Ivies have been competing in sports as long as intercollegiate sports have existed in the United States. Rowing teams from Harvard and Yale met in the first sporting event held between students of two U.S. colleges on [[Lake Winnipesaukee]], [[New Hampshire]], on August 3, 1852. Harvard's team, "The Oneida", won the race and was presented with trophy black walnut oars from then-presidential nominee General [[Franklin Pierce]]. The proposal to create an athletic league did not succeed. On January 11, 1937, the athletic authorities at the schools rejected the "possibility of a [[heptagon]]al league in football such as these institutions maintain in basketball, baseball and track." However, they noted that the league "has such promising possibilities that it may not be dismissed and must be the subject of further consideration."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1937/01/12/archives/plea-for-an-ivy-football-league-rejected-by-college-authorities.html |title = Plea for an Ivy Football League Rejected by College Authorities | work = The New York Times | page = 26 | date = January 12, 1937}}</ref>