Box Box 13 - The Big Ten Conference
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A small metal box hidden traditionally.
This is the final Box Box cache! Location is as listed in additional waypoints. Be sure to take your prize, and let me know if they are getting low.
Congrats to Team Honeybunnies, Zuma and WI Robin for getting the series FTF!
This is a series of 13 caches similar to Panther in the Den’s Can Can series further south along the river, but with a few less hides. Think of it as Can Can’s poorer cousin. My dad and I had a great time doing the Can Can, so I wanted to fill the gap along this part of the Des Plaines in a similar way.
All the hides are close to the trails. A few are right next to the trail, so be careful of the muggles! None are more than 250 foot from the trail, with pretty minimal bushwacking. It’s meant to be a quick, fun series.
Like Can Can, the series can be done in triads, or all at once.
The series is dedicated to a friend of mine, Mike, who recently passed away. He was always trying to keep me up-to-date on various sporting events. So, the theme of the series is the Big Ten Conference.
Here’s a little history of the Conference from their website:
A meeting of seven Midwest university presidents on January 11, 1895 at the Palmer House in Chicago to discuss the regulation and control of intercollegiate athletics was the first development of what would become one of organized sports' most successful undertakings. Those seven men, behind the leadership of James H. Smart, president of Purdue University, established the principles for which the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives, more popularly known as the Big Ten Conference, would be founded.
At that meeting, a blueprint for the control and administration of college athletics under the direction of appointed faculty representatives was outlined. The presidents' first-known action "restricted eligibility for athletics to bonafide, full-time students who were not delinquent in their studies."
This helped limit some problems of the times, especially the participation of professional athletes and "non-students" in the university's regular sporting events. That important legislation, along with others that would follow in the coming years, served as the primary building block for amateur intercollegiate athletics.
Eleven months after the presidents met, one faculty member from each of those seven universities met at the same Palmer House, and officially established the mechanics of the "Intercollegiate conference of Faculty Representatives", or "Big Ten Conference" of "Western Conference."
Those seven universities were: University of Chicago, University of Illinois, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin. Indiana University and the State University of Iowa were admitted in 1899. Ohio State joined in 1912. Chicago withdrew in 1946 and Michigan State College (now Michigan State University) was added three years later in 1949.
After a 40-year period of constancy in membership, the Conference expanded to 11 members for the first time. On June 4, 1990, the Council of Presidents voted to confirm its earlier decision to integrate Pennsylvania State University into the Conference.
At the turn of the century, faculty representatives established rules for intercollegiate athletics that were novel for the time. As early as 1906, the faculty approved legislation that required eligible athletes to meet entrance requirements and to have completed a full year's work, along with having one year of residence. Freshmen and graduate students were not permitted to compete, training tables (or quarters) were forbidden, and coaches were to be appointed by university bodies "at modest salaries."
Football and baseball were the popular sports prior to 1900. Wisconsin won the first two football championships and Chicago claimed the first three baseball titles. The first "official" sponsored championship was in out-door track. It was held at the University of Chicago in 1906 with Michigan earning the title.
Today, the Big Ten sponsors 25 championships, 12 for men and 13 for women. There have been many different athletic events popularized on Big Ten campuses. Some became extremely popular - football and basketball, for example. Others, like boxing, fell by the wayside.
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