Northwest Conference (1908–1925)

The Northwest Conference, also known as the Northwest Intercollegiate Association, the Northwest Intercollegiate Conference, the Pacific Northwest Conference, and the Pacific Northwest Intercollegiate Conference, was a collegiate athletic conference with member schools located in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

The conference's member institutions originally included the "Big Six": the large public universities of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho; the Washington State and Oregon State public agricultural colleges, and the private Whitman College. The conference was later expanded to include the University of Montana, Willamette, Pacific, and Gonzaga.

The conference folded in December 1925, giving way to another conference with the same name, the Northwest Conference, which remains in operation.

History

Background

Northwest Intercollegiate Conference

In January 1908 officials at Whitman College called a conference of seven primary athletics-oriented universities in the region to reform a new intercollegiate athletics association."Conference Is Meeting Today,"
''Oregon Daily Journal'' ortland vol. 6, no. 290 (Feb. 7, 1908), p. 12. Each school was represented by two delegates at the Walla Walla conference — one representing the faculty and another representing the student body. The gathering was attended by six colleges — Idaho, Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon Agricultural, and Whitman. A seventh institution, the University of Montana, was apparently invited to the reorganizational meeting"Purify College Athletics,"
''Walla Walla Evening Statesman,'' Jan. 16, 1908, p. 4. but apparently did not attend.

At a two-day conference in Walla Walla, February 7–8, 1908, discussions on a broad range of topics were planned, including the eligibility of those participating in paid summer baseball, the development of a combined football schedule, and establishment of regional meets for track and field and debate. Rules for athletic participation including a one-year residence requirement and four year total of eligibility were also said to be promoted at the meeting by some participants.

The February 1908 conference in Walla Walla generated a binding set of rules for the six member schools for the 1908–09 and 1909–10 academic years."The Best of Feeling Prevailed at Intercollegiate Conference,"
''Eugene Morning Register,'' vol. 19, no. 115 (Feb. 11, 1908), p. 5. These included a four-year limit on athletic participation and a requirement that students transferring into member schools would not be eligible for athletic participation until they had been in attendance for one college year. The question of semi-professional summer baseball was to be left to the decision by athletic committees of each institution.

Rationalization of the football schedule was particularly desired, with the hope expressed that the newly rejuvenated conference would "either take control of, or in some way influence the arrangement of football schedules so that the northwest championship may be definitely decided each year, instead of leaving the schedule-making to a haphazard choice by individual managers." This aspiration was not to be achieved, however, and irregular scheduling among conference schools remained the norm.

Co-membership in the Pacific Coast Conference

At a December 3, 1915 meeting in Portland, Oregon, three conference members, Washington, Oregon, and Oregon Agricultural, who had helped form the new Pacific Coast Conference, noted that they would remain members of the Northwest Conference as well, and that the new conference was intended solely to allowing scheduling and set rules for competition with the California schools. An agreement was signed between the two conferences, setting rules for each and agreeing that rules from one conference would not apply to games in the other conference. The dual membership statuses remained in place a decade, even as other member schools also later joined the PCC.

Demise and rebirth

At a meeting on December 12, 1925, in Seattle, the larger member schools (Washington, Washington State, Idaho, Gonzaga, Montana, Oregon, and Oregon Agricultural) formally withdrew from the conference. The smaller member schools (Pacific University, Whitman College, and Willamette University) announced they had reorganized with three others (College of Idaho, Linfield College, and the College of Puget Sound) the night before at a meeting in Tacoma, and were retaining the Northwest Conference name and eligibity requirements. The decision of the larger schools to leave was described in the press as harmonious and for mutual advantage, with the smaller schools no longer being matched against the larger.

Member institutions

Six colleges and universities were invited to a conference on February 7–8, 1908, in Walla Walla, where a new Northwest Conference was established. Four additional schools were added, starting in December 1916.

Yearly football standings

References

{{Reflist , refs=
{{cite news , agency=Associated Press , date=December 13, 1925 , number=213 , page=C1 , title=Withdrawal of Large Universities Is End of Old Northwest Conference , url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-spokesman-review-1925-end-of-northwe/161117784/ , work=The Spokesman-Review , place=Seattle , publication-place=Spokane , quote=Gonzaga Left as Free Lance — Six Small Colleges Form Another Conference, Retaining Old Name and Rules — Officials of all colleges concerned emphasized the fact that the move was entirely harmonious and for mutual advantage.
{{cite news , last=Borland , first=Lynn , date=November 20, 2010 , title=Legendary coach Gil Dobie’s only loss at Washington: his legacy , url=https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/uw-huskies/legendary-coach-gil-dobies-only-loss-at-washington-his-legacy/ , work=The Seattle Times , url-access=subscription , access-date=December 8, 2024 , quote=But the best evaluation should be based on head-to-head league competition. Here Dobie was clearly superior in a surprisingly robust Pacific Northwest Intercollegiate Conference (Big 6) that won 78 percent of its games against USC, California, Colorado, Nebraska, Michigan State, Utah and Pennsylvania.
{{cite news , last=O'English , first=Mark , date=August 31, 2024 , title=Before the Pac-12, there was the Northwest Conference , url=https://www.dnews.com/local-news-northwest/nearby-history-before-the-pac-12-there-was-the-northwest-conference6f4444a2 , url-access=subscription , work=Moscow-Pullman Daily News , access-date=December 8, 2024

Sports leagues established in 1908
Sports leagues disestablished in 1925
1908 establishments in Washington (state)
1925 disestablishments in Washington (state)