Midwest Conference (Midwest Collegiate Athletic Conference, MCAC)
Scope and Contents
The collection is arranged into 19 different series, six of which concern Beloit College athletics as a whole, as contained in series like the Midwest Conference and Athletic Committees. Twelve series are delineated by sport and are arranged alphabetically. Sports or clubs that do not have enough records to necessitate their own series, such as volleyball and wrestling, are collected into another series entitled Miscellaneous Sports.
Most of the sports team series contain game and tournament programs, news clippings from Beloit College and outside publications, news releases from the College, team records, statistics, rosters, and schedules.
The Midwest Conference series includes a significant amount of documents, mostly newspaper clippings and correspondence from Presidents Carey Croneis and Miller Upton, regarding the decision in 1951 to expel Beloit College from the conference, and the 1958 decision to readmit the College.
This finding aid does not list audiovisual materials, but the Beloit College Archives does hold many recordings of events on film and VHS tape.
Dates
- 1851-ongoing
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open for research; however, certain materials are very fragile and require Archives staff for handling, or use may be restricted altogether.
Biographical / Historical
The Midwest Conference provides championship intercollegiate competition for 10 liberal arts schools located in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. The modern-era Midwest Conference was created in the spring of 1994 with the merger of the Midwest Collegiate Athletic Conference, which had been sponsoring men's championships since 1921, and the Midwest Athletic Conference for Women, which was formed to conduct women's championship competition in 1977.
Organization of the MCAC was conceived at a meeting at Coe College on May 12, 1921. Charter members were Beloit, Carleton, Coe, Cornell, Knox and Lawrence. Competition began that same spring with a track and field meet.
Over the next 70 years, Ripon, Monmouth, Grinnell, Lake Forest, Illinois College, St. Norbert, and Carroll joined the conference. Carleton withdrew following the 1982-83 academic year. St. Olaf also competed in the conference from 1952-74, as did the University of Chicago from 1976-87. Coe and Cornell withdrew following the 1996-97 academic year.
Extent
From the Collection: 38 Linear Feet (49 boxes, 4 file cabinet drawers; further additions are expected )
Language of Materials
English
Repository Details
Part of the Beloit College Archives and Special Collections, Beloit, WI Repository