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Indiana Intercollegiate Athletic Association
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Indiana Intercollegiate Athletic Association
The Indiana Intercollegiate Athletic Association was a men's college athletic conference in the United States, established in 1890 by institutions in the state of Indiana. At a time when the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) did not yet exist, such organizations attempted to bring order out of the chaos of the formative years of American intercollegiate sports.
The IIAA was founded on March 1, 1890, in a meeting held at the Indianapolis YMCA. The seven charter member institutions were Indiana, Purdue, Butler, Wabash, DePauw, Hanover, and Franklin. Initial officers included W. H. Bliss of Indiana (president), R. D. Meeker of Butler (vice president), and A. H. Bradshaw of Franklin (secretary). At least one source later claimed a track meet at Butler in 1889--the year prior to the founding of the IIAA--as the association's first competition, leading to long-lasting confusion over the date of its founding.
The IIAA existed at a time of transition for intercollegiate athletics. When it was created, college sports were only loosely controlled by the institutions they represented; most schools followed the Yale model, in which programs were run by a combination of students, alumni, and boosters. By the time of its dissolution, most larger schools (and an increasing number of smaller ones) had adopted the Chicago model, featuring an athletic director and multi-sport coach who was a full-time employee of the institution, on the model of Amos Alonzo Stagg, whom the University of Chicago had hired for such a role in 1892. Nevertheless, as late as 1903–4, the IIAA was still a student-run organization. That year, C. L. Peck, "an Indianapolis student at Purdue," was elected IIAA president at the association's annual December meeting.
The constitution drafted by the founders stipulated that every participant in an IIAA contest must be "an active member of the college he represents" who had never been paid for playing his sport. "Graduate instructors" were barred from competition. Five years later, amendments were added barring the practice of athletes playing under an "assumed name" and preventing members from playing against "any professional team representing so-called athletic associations." The latter rule came in response to the growing phenomenon of play-for-pay baseball and football among urban athletic clubs and YMCA teams. In 1896 the IIAA lifted the ban on playing against professional teams, but at the same time agreed to "clothe the professors of the colleges with power to decide who shall belong to the college clubs." This had the practical effect of preventing the conference's teams from hiring non-student "ringers" to supplement their rosters. More generally, it was an important step in extending faculty control over intercollegiate athletics in Indiana.
The first official IIAA competition was a six-game round robin in baseball, scheduled for the spring of 1890, the results of which are lost to history. Rose Polytechnic (today Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology) became the eighth conference member later in the spring of 1890, too late for baseball but in time to participate in, and win, the first IIAA track meet, held that May. By the fall of 1891, five members (all but Hanover, Franklin, and Rose Polytechnic) were playing a four-game round robin in football, with the last game on Thanksgiving Day in Indianapolis. The IIAA drafted a six-game schedule for baseball for the spring of 1892 (with Franklin not participating) and a five-game schedule for football (without Franklin or Hanover) for the fall of 1892. By the spring of 1893, Earlham had joined the IIAA as its ninth member.
The IIAA faced its first crisis on Thanksgiving Day, 1894, when Butler played a home game against the eleven of the Indiana Light Artillery, cutting into the gate of the Purdue-DePauw game, slotted months earlier to be the season finale in Indianapolis. DePauw subsequently demanded that Butler be expelled from the IIAA for scheduling a game that competed with the conference contest, even though it had violated no rule in doing so. When Butler survived the March 1895 expulsion vote, DePauw quit the IIAA in protest (only temporarily, as it turned out). At the time, the IIAA remained at nine members by admitting Indiana State and promptly integrating the newcomers into the spring 1895 baseball schedule. The dust had barely settled when Purdue, in May 1895, accused Wabash of using a professional pitcher in their conference contest, sparking another crisis. Protested games became common enough to pose a serious burden on the conference, at a time when there was no such thing as a commissioner or conference office. A committee of the membership had to be assembled to adjudicate every protest, and to cover the cost, the IIAA began charging a fee to the losing party in a disputed contest.
The conference that eventually became the Big Ten was founded in February 1896 and overshadowed the IIAA for the remainder of its existence. Organized as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives, but popularly known as the Western Conference, it counted Purdue among its charter members and added Indiana in December 1899. To enable the state's two flagship universities to maintain a concurrent membership in the IIAA, in March 1900 the association adopted a new constitution committing its members to follow the same eligibility rules as the Western Conference.
By spring 1896 DePauw had returned to active membership, raising the number of IIAA schools to ten, but Franklin, Hanover, Earlham, and Indiana State did not field baseball teams. Everyone usually participated in the annual May track meet, but in 1897 Franklin and Hanover (the two least active IIAA members) missed it, too.
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Indiana Intercollegiate Athletic Association
The Indiana Intercollegiate Athletic Association was a men's college athletic conference in the United States, established in 1890 by institutions in the state of Indiana. At a time when the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) did not yet exist, such organizations attempted to bring order out of the chaos of the formative years of American intercollegiate sports.
The IIAA was founded on March 1, 1890, in a meeting held at the Indianapolis YMCA. The seven charter member institutions were Indiana, Purdue, Butler, Wabash, DePauw, Hanover, and Franklin. Initial officers included W. H. Bliss of Indiana (president), R. D. Meeker of Butler (vice president), and A. H. Bradshaw of Franklin (secretary). At least one source later claimed a track meet at Butler in 1889--the year prior to the founding of the IIAA--as the association's first competition, leading to long-lasting confusion over the date of its founding.
The IIAA existed at a time of transition for intercollegiate athletics. When it was created, college sports were only loosely controlled by the institutions they represented; most schools followed the Yale model, in which programs were run by a combination of students, alumni, and boosters. By the time of its dissolution, most larger schools (and an increasing number of smaller ones) had adopted the Chicago model, featuring an athletic director and multi-sport coach who was a full-time employee of the institution, on the model of Amos Alonzo Stagg, whom the University of Chicago had hired for such a role in 1892. Nevertheless, as late as 1903–4, the IIAA was still a student-run organization. That year, C. L. Peck, "an Indianapolis student at Purdue," was elected IIAA president at the association's annual December meeting.
The constitution drafted by the founders stipulated that every participant in an IIAA contest must be "an active member of the college he represents" who had never been paid for playing his sport. "Graduate instructors" were barred from competition. Five years later, amendments were added barring the practice of athletes playing under an "assumed name" and preventing members from playing against "any professional team representing so-called athletic associations." The latter rule came in response to the growing phenomenon of play-for-pay baseball and football among urban athletic clubs and YMCA teams. In 1896 the IIAA lifted the ban on playing against professional teams, but at the same time agreed to "clothe the professors of the colleges with power to decide who shall belong to the college clubs." This had the practical effect of preventing the conference's teams from hiring non-student "ringers" to supplement their rosters. More generally, it was an important step in extending faculty control over intercollegiate athletics in Indiana.
The first official IIAA competition was a six-game round robin in baseball, scheduled for the spring of 1890, the results of which are lost to history. Rose Polytechnic (today Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology) became the eighth conference member later in the spring of 1890, too late for baseball but in time to participate in, and win, the first IIAA track meet, held that May. By the fall of 1891, five members (all but Hanover, Franklin, and Rose Polytechnic) were playing a four-game round robin in football, with the last game on Thanksgiving Day in Indianapolis. The IIAA drafted a six-game schedule for baseball for the spring of 1892 (with Franklin not participating) and a five-game schedule for football (without Franklin or Hanover) for the fall of 1892. By the spring of 1893, Earlham had joined the IIAA as its ninth member.
The IIAA faced its first crisis on Thanksgiving Day, 1894, when Butler played a home game against the eleven of the Indiana Light Artillery, cutting into the gate of the Purdue-DePauw game, slotted months earlier to be the season finale in Indianapolis. DePauw subsequently demanded that Butler be expelled from the IIAA for scheduling a game that competed with the conference contest, even though it had violated no rule in doing so. When Butler survived the March 1895 expulsion vote, DePauw quit the IIAA in protest (only temporarily, as it turned out). At the time, the IIAA remained at nine members by admitting Indiana State and promptly integrating the newcomers into the spring 1895 baseball schedule. The dust had barely settled when Purdue, in May 1895, accused Wabash of using a professional pitcher in their conference contest, sparking another crisis. Protested games became common enough to pose a serious burden on the conference, at a time when there was no such thing as a commissioner or conference office. A committee of the membership had to be assembled to adjudicate every protest, and to cover the cost, the IIAA began charging a fee to the losing party in a disputed contest.
The conference that eventually became the Big Ten was founded in February 1896 and overshadowed the IIAA for the remainder of its existence. Organized as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives, but popularly known as the Western Conference, it counted Purdue among its charter members and added Indiana in December 1899. To enable the state's two flagship universities to maintain a concurrent membership in the IIAA, in March 1900 the association adopted a new constitution committing its members to follow the same eligibility rules as the Western Conference.
By spring 1896 DePauw had returned to active membership, raising the number of IIAA schools to ten, but Franklin, Hanover, Earlham, and Indiana State did not field baseball teams. Everyone usually participated in the annual May track meet, but in 1897 Franklin and Hanover (the two least active IIAA members) missed it, too.