Long Island Interscholastic Athletic League

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Long Island Interscholastic Athletic League was a high school sports league in the New York City area in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It included public and private schools in Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island. The league began in 1893 with four football schools: Boys High School of Brooklyn, Adelphi Academy, Polytechnic Institute, and Bryant & Stratton Business College. When track started that spring, Brooklyn Latin School, St. Paul’s School, and Pratt Institute joined, and Erasmus Hall High School joined in 1898. In its first year the league sponsored football, track and field, baseball, and tennis; in winter it added handball, basketball, ice skating, indoor track, and ice hockey by the end of the decade. The league was run by the students, with adult advisors arranging venues. Each school formed an athletic association to organize competition, and delegates from the schools met to schedule events. Most competitions lost money, and the winning school usually received $25 for a trophy. In the early 1900s, the league ran into conflicts over control with school administrators. After the Public Schools Athletic League (PSAL) started in 1903, the Long Island League faded. By 1904 not all schools scheduled games, and no football champion was reported. The 1906 Brooklyn Boys’ football title may have been the last league champion, and the 1908 Polytechnic Prep title was likely just titular, though some papers called it a league championship. The last known event was an outdoor track meet in 1907 between Erasmus Hall and Polytechnic Institute.