Little Three

The "Little Three" is an unofficial athletic conference of three elite liberal arts colleges in New England. The "Little Three" are:

* Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts
* Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut
* Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts

In 1899, Amherst, Wesleyan and Williams schools first began to compete together as the "Triangular League." Since then they have to continued to play each other in most sports on a regular basis. In the 1920s, the league picked up the nickname the "Little Three," in contrast to the "Big Three," (Harvard, Yale, and Princeton) and the name has stuck.

These colleges are all also members of New England Small College Athletic Conference, and all of these schools are commonly included in the group of schools known as the "Little Ivies."

The "Little Three" was also an unofficial grouping of three Western New York Catholic colleges with rather intense rivalries in Division I Men's basketball: Canisius College in Buffalo, Niagara University in Lewiston and St. Bonaventure University in Allegany. When the University at Buffalo achieved Division I status in the early 1990s, the grouping expanded and became known as the "Big Four."

External links

* [http://www.wesleyan.edu/athletics/sportsinfo/little3/little3history.html History of the Little Three] at Wesleyan University