The Ivy League is a college athletic conference originally formed to preserve the "ideals of intercollegiate athletics."The Harvard Crimson: Editorial Initiating the Ivy League

The initial agreement, signed in 1945, applied only to football, and had as its central tenet a clause prohibiting the granting of athletic scholarships. This agreement eventually covered all sports, forming the basis for the Ivy League Athletic Conference, the governing body for all intercollegiate athletic contests between the member universities. The term "Ivy League" has moved into the popular vernacular and is generally viewed as conveying a sense of academic excellence and social elitism, rather than just the name of the athletic conference.

• 1916: Harvard, Yale, and Princeton form the Big Three, an alliance with similar agreements as the Ivies

• 1936: The newspapers of the future Ivies run editorials pushing for the formation of an Ivy League

• 1945: The universities' presidents sign the first Ivy Group Agreement, which set the group's standards

• 1954: The Ivy Group Agreement is reissued to expand and cover all male intercollegiate sports

• 1971: The presidents approve the motion to prevent discrimination on the grounds of sex

• 1981: The Ivy League football teams join the newly created NCAA division I-AA, now known as the FCS

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