This is a page on the history of

Missouri Valley Conference The Missouri Valley Conference (also called MVC or simply "The Valley") is the third-oldest collegiate athletic conference in the United States. The conference's members are primarily located in the midwest. History The MVC was established ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

. The Missouri Valley Conference sponsored football from 1907 through the 1985 school year. The conference voted to drop football as a sport on April 30, 1985. At the time the Conference was a mixture of NCAA division I-A programs (Tulsa and Wichita State) and NCAA division I-AA programs (Drake, Illinois State, Indiana State, Southern Illinois, and West Texas State).

History

Houston's 1952 Missouri Valley Conference football championship trophy

The Missouri Valley Conference started sponsoring football in the fall of 1907. In 1951 Drake University and Bradley University left the Missouri Valley Conference as a result of the Johnny Bright incident, a racially motivated on-field attack against Drake's

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...

star

Johnny Bright John Dee Bright (June 11, 1930 – December 14, 1983) was an American professional football player in the Canadian Football League. He played college football at Drake University. He is a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, the Nation ...

by a

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White ...

Oklahoma A&M player. Both schools returned to the MVC for non-football sports several years later (Bradley in 1955 and Drake in 1956), but Bradley never rejoined for football (dropping the sport in 1970), and Drake didn't rejoin in football until 1971. Washburn University competed in football from 1935 through 1940. Saint Louis University dropped football after the 1949 season. By the late 1960s, rising costs for football meant that basketball could no longer help subsidize football programs. According to a 2017 story in ''

The Wichita Eagle ''The Wichita Eagle'' is a daily newspaper published in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is owned by The McClatchy Company and is the largest newspaper in Wichita and the surrounding area. History Origins In 1870, ''The Vidette'' was the fi ...

'', "The MVC looked west to find football and alienated its basketball powers." The first schools brought in during this period were New Mexico State and West Texas State (now West Texas A&M), respectively joining in 1970 and 1971; the conference also established a tie-in with the now-defunct

Pasadena Bowl The Pasadena Bowl, known as the Junior Rose Bowl from 1946 to 1966 and again in 1976 and 1977, was a college football bowl game. Between 1946 and 1966 and again in 1976 and 1977, the game pitted the California Junior College football champions aga ...

. The new additions almost immediately led to conflict between several established members and the conference office. Cincinnati, Louisville, and Memphis State (now Memphis) complained about travel costs, and Memphis State was bitterly opposed to a full round-robin conference schedule, wishing to play more games within its region. All three schools left the MVC within a four-year period in the 1970s—Cincinnati in 1971, Memphis State in 1973, and Louisville in 1975. At the time of Memphis State's departure, Bradley's then-athletic director publicly said, "We sort of pushed Memphis out. They didn’t want to play everybody in football and we said that they must." These were not the only departures from the conference during this period; non-football member Saint Louis left in 1974, wishing to compete with urban basketball-focused schools like itself, and North Texas State (now North Texas) went independent in 1975 due to a desire for more scheduling flexibility. The MVC attempted to reload by adding Southern Illinois (1974 for non-football sports, 1977 for football), Indiana State (1976), and Illinois State (1980 for non-football sports, 1981 for football). The two schools whose arrival led to this instability would themselves leave in the 1980s—New Mexico State left after the 1982 season, and West Texas State left after the conference's final football season of 1985. On December 5, 2006 the Missouri Valley Conference released its All-Centennial team.

Membership timeline

This membership timeline reflects only Missouri Valley Conference football, not the Missouri Valley Conference as a whole. DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1907 till:1995 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:20 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 #> to display a count on left side of graph, use "left:20" to suppress the count, use "left:20"<# Colors = id:barcolor id:line value:black id:bg value:white id:Full value:rgb(0.742,0.727,0.852) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports id:FullxF value:rgb(0.551,0.824,0.777) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports except for football id:AssocF value:rgb(0.98,0.5,0.445) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member for football only id:AssocOS value:rgb(0.5,0.691,0.824) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in some sports, but not all (consider identifying in legend or a footnote) id:OtherC1 value:rgb(0.996,0.996,0.699) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference id:OtherC2 value:rgb(0.988,0.703,0.383) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference where OtherC1 has already been used, to distinguish the two PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:1 color:Full from:1907 till:1909 text:

Iowa Iowa () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wiscon ...

(1907–1908) bar:2 color:Full from:1907 till:1928 text:

Kansas Kansas () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its Capital city, capital is Topeka, Kansas, Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita, Kansas, Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebras ...

(1907–1927) bar:3 color:Full from:1907 till:1928 text:

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

(1907–1927) bar:4 color:Full from:1907 till:1919 text:

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the sout ...

(1907–1918, 1921–1927) bar:4 color:Full from:1921 till:1928 bar:5 color:Full from:1907 till:1943 text: Washington U (1907–1942) bar:6 color:Full from:1908 till:1952 text:

Drake Drake may refer to: Animals * A male duck People and fictional characters * Drake (surname), a list of people and fictional characters with the family name * Drake (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name ...

(1908–1951, 1971–1985) bar:6 color:Full from:1971 till:1986 bar:7 color:Full from:1908 till:1928 text:

Iowa State Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the ...

(1908–1927) bar:8 color:Full from:1913 till:1928 text:

Kansas State Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant college in 1863 and was the first public instit ...

(1913–1927) bar:9 color:Full from:1919 till:1939 text: Grinnell (1919–1938) bar:10 color:Full from:1920 till:1928 text:

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

(1920–1927) bar:11 color:Full from:1925 till:1957 text: Oklahoma A&M (1925–1956) bar:12 color:Full from:1928 till:1943 text: Creighton (1928–1942) bar:13 color:Full from:1932 till:1934 text:

Butler A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantries, pantry ...

(1932–1933) bar:14 color:Full from:1935 till:1986 text:

Tulsa Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region wit ...

(1935–1985) bar:15 color:Full from:1935 till:1941 text: Washburn (1935–1940) bar:16 color:Full from:1937 till:1950 text: Saint Louis (1937–1949) bar:17 color:Full from:1945 till:1986 text:

Wichita State Wichita State University (WSU) is a public research university in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The university offers more than 60 undergraduate degree programs in more than 200 areas of study ...

(1945–1985) bar:18 color:Full from:1948 till:1952 text:

Bradley Bradley is an English surname derived from a place name meaning "broad wood" or "broad meadow" in Old English. Like many English surnames Bradley can also be used as a given name and as such has become popular. It is also an Anglicisation of t ...

(1948–1951) bar:19 color:Full from:1949 till:1957 text:

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

(1949–1956) bar:20 color:Full from:1951 till:1960 text:

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...

(1951–1959) bar:21 color:Full from:1957 till:1970 text:

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...

(1957–1969) bar:22 color:Full from:1957 till:1975 text:

North Texas State The University of North Texas (UNT) is a Public university, public research university in Denton, Texas. It was founded as a nonsectarian, coeducational, private Normal school, teachers college in 1890 and was formally adopted by the state 11 y ...

(1957–1974) bar:23 color:Full from:1963 till:1975 text:

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

(1963–1974) bar:24 color:Full from:1968 till:1973 text:

Memphis State } The University of Memphis (UofM) is a public university, public research university in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1912, the university has an enrollment of more than 22,000 students. The university maintains the Herff College of Engineering ...

(1968–1972) bar:25 color:Full from:1970 till:1983 text:

New Mexico State New Mexico State University (NMSU or NM State) is a public land-grant research university based primarily in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest public institution of higher education in New Mexico and one of the state's tw ...

(1970–1982) bar:26 color:Full from:1971 till:1986 text: West Texas State (1971–1985) bar:27 color:Full from:1974 till:1986 text:

Southern Illinois Southern Illinois, also known as Little Egypt, is the southern third of Illinois, principally along and south of Interstate 64. Although part of a Midwestern state, this region is aligned in culture more with that of the Upland South than the Mi ...

(1974–1985) bar:28 color:Full from:1976 till:1986 text: Indiana State (1976–1985) bar:29 color:Full from:1980 till:1986 text:

Illinois State Illinois State University (ISU) is a public university in Normal, Illinois. Founded in 1857 as Illinois State Normal University, it is the oldest public university in Illinois. The university emphasizes teaching and is recognized as one of th ...

(1980–1985) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:10 start:1907 TextData = fontsize:L textcolor:black pos:(0,30) tabs:(400-center) text:^"Missouri Valley Conference Membership History" #> If the chart uses more than one bar color, add a legend by selecting the appropriate fields from the following six options (use only the colors that are used in the graphic.) Leave a blank line after the end of the timeline, then add a line with the selected values from the list, separated by a space. <#

Champions by year

Championships by school

References

{{Reflist Articles which contain graphical timelines