page_title: Northwest Intercollegiate Athletic Association
section_title: Establishment
hierarchical_section_title: Northwest Intercollegiate Athletic Association / Conference History / Establishment
caption_attribution_description: English: University of Washington President (1902–1914) Thomas Franklin Kane
context_page_description: The Northwest Intercollegiate Athletic Association, also known informally as the Northwest Conference, was a collegiate athletic conference in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, established in 1902. The conference ended football competition in 1914, but some sports, such as wrestling, continued through at least 1917.
context_section_description: The Northwest Intercollegiate Athletic Association was established at a conference held in Spokane, Washington on October 11, 1902. Delegates from eight leading colleges of the Pacific Northwest region, including three university presidents, gathered in the directors' rooms of the Spokane Athletic Club and resolved to establish a new governing body for intercollegiate athletic competition. One of the schools present at the founding session, Pacific University, ultimately decided not to affiliate with the new group.
  The University of Oregon was not represented by a delegate at the October 11 foundation meeting but voted to join in December 1902, bringing the total to eight institutions in the new federation.
  The new body was designed to establish uniform eligibility rules for college athletics, to resolve such disputes as may emerge, and to schedule competitions between member schools in both athletics and debate. Thomas Franklin Kane, president of the University of Washington, was chosen as temporary chair of the new body, with mathematics professor J. E. Bonebright of the University of Idaho provisionally named as secretary. The gathering decided that governance should be through a board elected by the member institutions, with each school electing one member to the board — either a student, faculty member, or alumnus.
  The Association took a strong position against professionalism, declaring that only bona fide students of true amateur status should be entitled to participate in intercollegiate competition. It was hoped that this would bring to an end the use of infiltrating skilled ringers into collegiate competition, a practice already recognized to be a bane upon college sports. Sports championships were to be arranged by the governing board.
caption: Thomas Franklin Kane, president of the University of Washington, was named the temporary chair of the NIAA at its founding meeting in 1902.
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