The Gateway Football Conference enters its 20th season in 2004, and the league will be hard-pressed to duplicate the success of 2003. Four teams represented the league in the 16-team NCAA I-AA playoffs, marking the first time any league has sent that many to the playoffs in the same year in the 26-year history of I-AA postseason.

The original Gateway Conference was founded as a women’s athletics organization in August, 1982. The Gateway football division was born on August 21, 1985. In July of 1992, the league assumed its new name – Gateway Football Conference – as the women’s programs realigned with their men’s counterparts in their respective conferences, with most of the schools realigning in the Missouri Valley Conference.

The Gateway Football Conference remains a separate league administered from headquarters in St. Louis, Mo.