<P> A common folk etymology attributes the name to the Roman numeral for four (IV), asserting that there was such a sports league originally with four members . The Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins helped to perpetuate this belief . The supposed "IV League" was formed over a century ago and consisted of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and a fourth school that varies depending on who is telling the story . However, it is clear that Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Columbia met on November 23, 1876 at the so - called Massasoit Convention to decide on uniform rules for the emerging game of American football, which rapidly spread . </P> <P> Seven out of the eight Ivy League schools were founded before the American Revolution; Cornell was founded just after the American Civil War . These seven were the primary colleges in the Northern and Middle Colonies, and their early faculties and founding boards were largely drawn from other Ivy League institutions . There were also some British graduates from the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, the University of St. Andrews, the University of Edinburgh, and elsewhere on their boards . Similarly, the founder of The College of William & Mary, in 1693, was a British graduate of the University of Edinburgh . Cornell provided Stanford University with its first president . </P> <P> The influence of these institutions on the founding of other colleges and universities is notable . This included the Southern public college movement which blossomed in the decades surrounding the turn of the 19th century when Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia established what became the flagship universities for each of these states . In 1801, a majority of the first board of trustees for what became the University of South Carolina were Princeton alumni . They appointed Jonathan Maxcy, a Brown graduate, as the university's first president . Thomas Cooper, an Oxford alumnus and University of Pennsylvania faculty member, became the second president of the South Carolina college . The founders of the University of California came from Yale, hence the school colors of University of California are Yale Blue and California Gold . </P> <P> Some of the Ivy League schools have identifiable Protestant roots, while others were founded as non-sectarian schools . Church of England King's College broke up during the Revolution and was reformed as public nonsectarian Columbia College . In the early nineteenth century, the specific purpose of training Calvinist ministers was handed off to theological seminaries, but a denominational tone and such relics as compulsory chapel often lasted well into the twentieth century . Penn and Brown were officially founded as nonsectarian schools . Brown's charter promised no religious tests and "full liberty of conscience", but placed control in the hands of a board of twenty - two Baptists, five Quakers, four Congregationalists, and five Episcopalians . Cornell has been strongly nonsectarian from its founding . </P>

Where does the ivy league name come from