Editing Big Ten Conference (section)

===Early history===

As intercollegiate football rapidly increased during the 1890s, so did the ruthless nature of the game. Tempers flared, fights erupted, and injuries soared. Between 1880 and 1905, college football players suffered more than 325 deaths and 1,149 injuries.{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}  To deal with mounting criticism of the game, [[Purdue University]] president [[James Henry Smart]]<ref name="bigten-2013">{{cite web |title=Big Ten History |url=http://www.bigten.org/trads/big10-trads.html |work=Big Ten Conference |date=2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131114224308/http://www.bigten.org/trads/big10-trads.html|url-status=dead |archive-date=November 14, 2013}}</ref> invited the presidents of the [[University of Chicago]], [[University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign|University of Illinois]], [[Lake Forest College]], [[University of Minnesota]], [[Northwestern University]], and [[University of Wisconsin–Madison|University of Wisconsin]] to a meeting in [[Chicago]] on January 11, 1895, to create policies aimed at regulating intercollegiate athletics. The eligibility of student-athletes was one of the main topics of discussion.<ref name="traditions">{{cite web | title = Big Ten History | publisher = Big Ten Conference | url = http://bigten.cstv.com/trads/big10-trads.html | access-date = January 14, 2007 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070113080920/http://bigten.cstv.com/trads/big10-trads.html | archive-date = January 13, 2007 | url-status=dead }}</ref> The '''Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives''' was founded at a second meeting on February 8, 1896.<ref name="Western Conference">{{cite book|title=From The Inside: A Half Century of Michigan Athletics|first=Don|last=Canham|publisher=Olympia Sports Press|year=1996|isbn=0-9654263-0-0|page=[https://archive.org/details/frominside00donc/page/281 281]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/frominside00donc/page/281}}</ref> Lake Forest was not at the 1896 meeting and was replaced by the [[University of Michigan]]. At the time, the organization was more commonly known as the '''Western Conference''', consisting of Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Chicago, Purdue, and Northwestern. These schools were the original seven members.

The conference is one of the nation's oldest, predating the founding of the NCAA by a decade and was one of the first collegiate conferences to sponsor men's basketball.

The first reference to the conference as the '''Big Nine''' was in 1899 after [[University of Iowa|Iowa]] and [[Indiana University Bloomington|Indiana]] had joined. [[University of Nebraska–Lincoln|Nebraska]] first petitioned to join the league in 1900 and again in 1911,<ref name="huskerextra.com">{{cite web|author=STEVEN M. SIPPLE / Lincoln Journal Star |url=http://huskerextra.com/sports/football/article_5bc8f4f4-7fc1-5511-a7f8-cb76f02e65d6.html |title=Latest Husker News |publisher=HuskerExtra.com |access-date=November 7, 2012}}</ref> but was turned away both times.

In 1905, the conference was officially incorporated as the "Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives".<ref name="bigten-2013"/>

In April 1907, [[University of Michigan|Michigan]] was voted out of the conference for refusing to adhere to league rules limiting football teams to no more than five games and players to three years of eligibility.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1907/04/14/106748007.pdf | work=The New York Times | title=CONFERENCE OUSTS MICHIGAN; Severs Relations with University for Non-Observance of Rules | date=April 14, 1907}}</ref> [[Ohio State University|Ohio State]] joined in 1912. The first known references to the conference as the '''Big Ten''' were in December 1916, when Michigan rejoined the conference after a nine-year absence.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/26053184/alumni_working_for_michigans_return/ |title=Alumni Working for Michigan's Return |newspaper=[[The Oregon Journal|The Oregon Daily Journal]] |page=9 |date=December 11, 1916 |access-date=December 8, 2018 |via=newspapers.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/26053211/live_tips_and_topics/ |title=Live Tips and Topics |newspaper=[[The Boston Globe]] |page=7 |date=December 16, 1916 |access-date=December 8, 2018 |via=newspapers.com}}</ref>