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Since 1990, there have actually been eleven schools in the conference:
Member schools participate in baseballBusch Stadium in Saint Louis, Missouri. Baseball is a team sport in which a small hand-sized ball is thrown and hit with a bat. Scoring involves running and touching markers on the ground called bases, hence the name. The ball itself is also called a base, men's and women's basketballBasketball is a ball sport in which two teams of five players each try to score points by throwing the ball through a basket. Basketball is highly suited to viewing by spectators, as it is primarily an indoor sport, played in a relatively small playing ar, cross country, field hockeyField hockey is a popular sport for men and women in many countries around the world. It is simply known as hockey in most countries, especially those in which ice hockey is not very prominent. Field hockey has several regular, prestigious international t, footballAmerican football known in the United States simply as football is a competitive team sport that rewards players' speed, agility, skill, tactics, and brute strength as they run and throw a ball, and block, tackle, and outrun each other, trying to force th, golfThis article is about the sport of golf. For other meanings, see Golf (disambiguation). Golf is an outdoor game where individual players or teams play a small ball into a hole using various clubs. It is defined in the Rules of Golf as playing a ball with, gymnasticsGymnastics is a sport involving the performance of sequences of movements requiring physical strength, flexibility, and kinaesthetic awareness. It developed from fitness exercises used by ancient Greek soldiers, including skills for mounting and dismounti, 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 (1895-1946), but left when it decided to deemphasize varsity athletics just before World War II. Chicago discontinued football in 1939 and left the Conference in 1946.
The Big Ten was founded in 1895 as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives. The first reference of the Conference as The Big Nine was in 1899 after Iowa and Indiana had joined the Conference. The first reference as the Big Ten was in 1917 after Michigan rejoined the conference (Ohio State had been added in 1912). It again was known as the Big Nine after the University of Chicago’s departure in 1946, and back to the Big Ten in 1950 when Michigan State joined. The Conference’s official name throughout the time was still the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives and was also known as the Western Conference. It did not formally adopt the name Big Ten until 1988 when it was incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation. Membership in the Big Ten conference also entitles member schools admission to the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, a leading educational consortium.