Minneapolis Journal
Dec. 5, 1902GOPHERS SAY NAY
Minnesota Will Not Enter the New
Football League Which. Is Froposed by Nebraska.
JTorth Star Eleven Is Not Logically
in That Territory�Sohednle
^u Already M l .
According to a dispatch from Omaha, a
football league composed of teams from
the universities of a number of western
states, will be formed in the near future.
A meeting of the Institutions interested
will be called a t once. According to the
Omaha dispatch, the members of the new
league will be teams from the universities
of Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado.
Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota and possibly t wo other state schools The league
la being engineered by Professor Clement,
who w e nt to Chicago from the Nebraska
university to attend the conference of the
"big nine." He said.
"Nebraska w a s disappointed in not g e tting Into the 'big nine,' but that only
m a k e s certain the plans which we have*
had in progress for some time�that of
forming a league from among the strictly
western universities We have had the
scheme under consideration for some time,
and were only waiting for the Chicago
conference before announcing tt. If the
*blg nine' had decided to let the western
universities into their organization, our
plans would never have come to light.
B ut now we must have a western league
or quit playing football.
"The western universities m a y arrange
t o participate In some track meet or play
a baseball game with some of the members of the 'big nine,' but football game s
are, of course, out of the question, with
one or t wo exceptions."
Minnesota Declines to Enter.
The new league m a y go through, and
probably will be a success, but it is hardly
likely that either Minnesota or Iowa will
be included in Its membership. Dr. H.
L. Williams, athletic director of the University of Minnesota, said this morning
in regard to the dispatch from Omaha:
"The report Is without foundation so
far a s Minnesota is concerned. As a
member of the big nine, Minnesota would
have nothing to gain by entering such a
league. We are not logically in the same
territory a s the other universities named,
and our schedule is pretty well filled up
as it is.
"I do not think that Iowa will enter tlu,
new league Iowa also is a membe r of tho
big nine, and will prefer to schedule games
with such teams a s Illinois, Minnesota,
Chicago, Northwestern or Wisconsin,
rather than to take on Kansas, Missouri,
Nebraska and the others "
Dr Williams said that the Minnesota
board of control had not yet taken formal
action upon Wisconsin's proposal that the
Minnesota-Wisconsin game be played in
Madison Thanksgiving day of 1903. He
Intimated, however, that Minnesota would
agree to the date. It had been Minnesota's Intention to play Illinois a t Champaign Thanksgiving day. and in case the
badger game Is definitely scheduled for
that date, Illinois will probably be given
the Saturday of the second week in N o -
vember, the date originally assigned to
Wisconsin.
