Big Ten football suffers from a lack of leadership

In 1895, the presidents of seven Midwestern universities met at the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago to form what we now call the Big Ten. They created the world’s first school-based sports organization, predating even the NCAA. Soon the rest of the country’s colleges and high schools followed suit, forming their own leagues based on the Big Ten model. The uniquely American marriage of academics and athletics – something no other country would even consider -- had been officially consummated. The Big Ten quickly established itself as the nation’s premier conference on the football field, too, and kept it up for decades. From 1900 to 1970, Big Ten teams won 39 national titles – more than one every two years. When the Rose Bowl started pitting the Big Ten against the Pac-10 in 1948, the Big Ten won 11 of the first 12. Sometimes the Big Ten would send its runner up – and that team would crush the Pac-10 champion, too. The Big Ten’s hey-day looked like it would never end. This was the fifties