Boy's cross country championships have been staged in the state since 1922, when the University of Iowa began holding an invitational meet featuring teams from around the state. In 1930, the IHSAA took over sponsorship of the state meet. Any school was allowed to enter a team directly into the state meet (there were no qualifying meets), but was required to pay a small fee of 25 cents per runner. This continued until 1966 (prior to which, the fee was $1.50 per runner), when the fee was dropped, and competition became open to any team that pre-registered. In 1976, district meets were instituted to limit the number of qualifying teams and individuals in the state championships. 

The standard length of IHSAA cross country meets has varied over time. The race distance was 1.9 miles from 1930 to 1950, 1.8 miles from 1951 to 1966, 2.0 miles from 1967 to 1986, and has been set at 5,000 meters (about 3.1 miles) since 1987. Scoring is, and always has been, based on how individuals place in the meet, with one point being given to the team with the first place individual, two points to the team with the second place individual, and so on. Initially, teams were allowed to enter 3, 4, or 5 runners, with the three best finishes counting towards team scoring. Beginning in 1970, a teams four best finishers were factored into the scoring, with teams allowed up to five runners. In 1988, team scoring was expanded again to the five best individual finishers, with teams allowed to enter up to seven individuals. In addition to team champions, individual champions are crowned, and individuals are allowed to take part in meets even if their full team does not. However, due to the nature of team scoring, individuals are not allowed to count their scores toward the team score unless their school has at least five runners.

In addition to the longer cross country race, a Team Mile race was held from 1935 to 1973 with a similar format (races that had place-based team scoring were run on golf courses in the fall). On this site, Team Mile champions can be found alongside the Cross Country champions on the school cross-country pages, and a list of champions for each event can be found at the links above.