The Big Three As An Athletic Association
The athletic agreements among the three universities were first formalized in 1906, although their football teams had been engaging in three-way competitions, which newspapers had been referring to as "HYP", since at least the 1880s. The Big Three made further formal agreements in 1916 and 1923, and although in part they have now been superseded by the Ivy League, formed in 1945, the three universities still sponsor events that involve only themselves.
The first Big Three agreement in 1906 was the result of a conference on football called by President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt in October 1905 as a result of deteriorating relations, particularly the exclusion of Princeton by Harvard and Yale, and increasing violence of play. The agreement of June 1916, the Triple Agreement, was originally proposed by President Woodrow Wilson in December 1909 out of a desire to reduce injuries, and took several years to come to fruition, resulting in common eligibility requirements. The Three Presidents' Agreement agreement of January 1923 covered financial arrangements, scouting, and scholarships, amongst other things. In 1926 there was a disagreement between Harvard and Princeton, that caused a hiatus in the Big Three that lasted for eight years.
Read more about this topic: Big Three (universities)
Famous quotes containing the words big, athletic and/or association:
“We find a delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness—a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.”
—William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)
“The spiritual kinship between Lincoln and Whitman was founded upon their Americanism, their essential Westernism. Whitman had grown up without much formal education; Lincoln had scarcely any education. One had become the notable poet of the day; one the orator of the Gettsyburg Address. It was inevitable that Whitman as a poet should turn with a feeling of kinship to Lincoln, and even without any association or contact feel that Lincoln was his.”
—Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950)