14 Schools•Division I•Est. 1963
The Big Sky Conference was founded on July 1, 1963, with six members spread across four states, conceived first as a basketball league. Its name came from the 1947 western novel by A. B. Guthrie Jr., suggested by a Spokane sports columnist days before the founding meetings and adopted when the new conference was announced. The league added women's sports in 1988, absorbing the membership of the women's-only Mountain West Athletic Conference. Its schools are public universities of the mountain and coastal West, and the conference has built its identity around the region it represents.
Championship success spans the sponsored sports. Members have won national championships in football and in distance running. Northern Arizona built one of the great distance programs in the country, with the Nilsson sisters, Ida and Johanna, combining for six individual national titles and Johanna taking the NCAA cross country crown in 2005. In basketball, Idaho State reached the Elite Eight in 1977 behind a one point upset of UCLA, and Montana and Weber State have dominated the conference tournament, with more than twenty titles between them.
The Olympic tradition runs deep, especially on the track. Dan O'Brien of Idaho set a world record in the decathlon and won gold at the 1996 Atlanta Games, earning the title of world's greatest athlete. Lopez Lomong of Northern Arizona ran in Beijing and London and carried the American flag at the 2008 opening ceremony. Angela Chalmers won bronze in the 3,000 meters for Canada in Barcelona, and David McNeill raced for Australia at three consecutive Games.
Rivalries anchor the calendar. Montana and Montana State have contested the Brawl of the Wild since 1897. Idaho and Montana have played for the Little Brown Stein since 1903. Idaho and Idaho State first met in the Battle of the Domes in 1916, and Cal Poly and UC Davis have competed for the Golden Horseshoe since 1939.
Official Website
The Big Sky Conference was founded on July 1, 1963, with six members spread across four states, conceived first as a basketball league. Its name came from the 1947 western novel by A. B. Guthrie Jr., suggested by a Spokane sports columnist days before the founding meetings and adopted when the new conference was announced. The league added women's sports in 1988, absorbing the membership of the women's-only Mountain West Athletic Conference. Its schools are public universities of the mountain and coastal West, and the conference has built its identity around the region it represents.
Championship success spans the sponsored sports. Members have won national championships in football and in distance running. Northern Arizona built one of the great distance programs in the country, with the Nilsson sisters, Ida and Johanna, combining for six individual national titles and Johanna taking the NCAA cross country crown in 2005. In basketball, Idaho State reached the Elite Eight in 1977 behind a one point upset of UCLA, and Montana and Weber State have dominated the conference tournament, with more than twenty titles between them.
The Olympic tradition runs deep, especially on the track. Dan O'Brien of Idaho set a world record in the decathlon and won gold at the 1996 Atlanta Games, earning the title of world's greatest athlete. Lopez Lomong of Northern Arizona ran in Beijing and London and carried the American flag at the 2008 opening ceremony. Angela Chalmers won bronze in the 3,000 meters for Canada in Barcelona, and David McNeill raced for Australia at three consecutive Games.
Rivalries anchor the calendar. Montana and Montana State have contested the Brawl of the Wild since 1897. Idaho and Montana have played for the Little Brown Stein since 1903. Idaho and Idaho State first met in the Battle of the Domes in 1916, and Cal Poly and UC Davis have competed for the Golden Horseshoe since 1939.
Official Website