Kermit Tales… The Formation of the Mid-American Conference

On February 26, 1946, five institutions - Ohio, Butler, Cincinnati, Wayne State and Western Reserve - founded the Mid-American Conference as its charter members. Of the original members, only Ohio remains in the conference and only one person on Ohio's current staff was around when it happened… Kermit Blosser.

“We were in what was called the old Buckeye Conference and the Buckeye Conference consisted of only Ohio schools,

So, OU formed a conference they'll never win(at least in football). Kind of like Gary Coleman founding the NBA slam dunk contest!

miamiredskinsmitty Wrote:So,  OU formed a conference they'll never win(at least in football).  Kind of like Gary Coleman founding the NBA slam dunk contest! 

We have 5 MAC Football Championships, if you didn't know. And the reason we haven't won a Football Championship recently is we decided to put athletics on the backburner while we built up our academics.

Thats changing now with an increased budget, so you better watch out.

Settle down Kit Cat, I'm just jerking your chain. My father is an Ohio alum(as are all his siblings), but my brothers & I all are Miami grads, and the entire family attends every Miami home game. Dad is accustomed to seeing Miami beat his Bobkittens but he wears his colors with pride!

The MAC was founded in 1946.

There was no Division I until 1973. The previous designation was university division vs. small college or something like that. And Ohio U. was not university division when the MAC was founded. If the Bobcats were, they could not have won the 1960 small college national championship.

So, while that news release may be on to something -- I don't doubt Ohio, Miami and Cincinnati were outgrowing Ohio Wesleyan, Wittenberg and Denison -- it has an awful lot of serious errors.

Schadenfreude Wrote:The MAC was founded in 1946.

There was no Division I until 1973. The previous designation was university division vs. small college or something like that. And Ohio U. was not university division when the MAC was founded. If the Bobcats were, they could not have won the 1960 small college national championship.

So, while that news release may be on to something -- I don't doubt Ohio, Miami and Cincinnati were outgrowing Ohio Wesleyan, Wittenberg and Denison -- it has an awful lot of serious errors.

I interpreted the article to mean that Wittenberg, Denison, Ohio Wesleyan were not Division 1 schools in other sports namely basketball.

What he was refering to as Division 1 was named Major College back in those days. And Ohio was considered Major College for one brief season in 1948, before spending the 50's in small college so there was a movement to aspire to bigger things as early as the late 40's.

Kit-Cat Wrote:

Schadenfreude Wrote:The MAC was founded in 1946.

There was no Division I until 1973. The previous designation was university division vs. small college or something like that. And Ohio U. was not university division when the MAC was founded. If the Bobcats were, they could not have won the 1960 small college national championship.

So, while that news release may be on to something -- I don't doubt Ohio, Miami and Cincinnati were outgrowing Ohio Wesleyan, Wittenberg and Denison -- it has an awful lot of serious errors.

I interpreted the article to mean that Wittenberg, Denison, Ohio Wesleyan were not Division 1 schools in other sports namely basketball.

What he was refering to as Division 1 was named Major College back in those days. And Ohio was considered Major College for one brief season in 1948, before spending the 50's in small college so there was a movement to aspire to bigger things as early as the late 40's.

Fair enough. I hadn't thought of basketball.