Founded | 1980 |
---|---|
Ceased | 2020 |
No. of teams | 6 when dissolved 8 at its height |
Region | 7 Counties: Daviess, Dubois, Gibson, Knox, Posey, and Warrick Counties, Indiana plus Wabash County, Illinois |
Locations | |
Big Eight at its height with Mount Carmel included. |
The Big Eight Conference was an athletic conference of IHSAA Class AAA high schools located in Southwestern Indiana. The conference members were small city-based schools located in Daviess, Dubois, Gibson, Knox, Posey, and Warrick counties in Indiana and once included Wabash County in Illinois. The conference ceased operations with the 2019-20 Winter Season as the final spring season was canceled because of the 2020 Coronavirus Outbreak.
The Big Eight Conference was created in 1980 when seven members of the Southern Indiana Athletic Conference (Boonville, Jasper, Mount Vernon, Princeton, Tell City, Vincennes Lincoln, and Washington) left to form a new conference with a member of the Pocket Athletic Conference (Gibson Southern). Gibson Southern left in 1994 to rejoin the PAC. Tell City followed suit to rejoin the PAC in 2001 as well (they had both been in that conference before Tell City joining the SIAC in 1953 when it was a super conference), reducing membership to six schools. Mount Carmel joined in 2003 to increase the membership to seven. Mount Carmel, located in Illinois, was the only school from outside Indiana to compete in an Indiana athletic conference.
There have been two different members of the conference that captured the 3A boys' basketball title in four successive years. Very rarely has this occurred in the history of the state finals. Washington captured the 2007–08, 2009–10, and 2010–11 titles, and Princeton captured the 2008-09 State Title. [1]
The conference's demise was set in motion by the Illinois High School Association member schools initially voting in December 2018 to establish a district football format (but repealing it one year later), meaning Mount Carmel would not be able to schedule all of the other conference members in that sport. The conference responded by voting to remove the school in 2020, while the school voted to leave before the 2019–20 school year. This set off a chain reaction, as Jasper and Vincennes Lincoln were accepted to return to the SIAC for 2020, and a week later, the PAC voted to accept the remaining four schools, including two former members, Boonville and Mount Vernon, effectively ending the conference. [2]
School | Location | Mascot | Colors | County | Year joined | Previous conference | Year left | Conference joined |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Boonville | Boonville | Pioneers | 87 Warrick | 1980 | Southern Indiana | 2020 | ||
Gibson Southern | Fort Branch | Titans | | 26 Gibson | 1980 | 1994 | ||
Jasper | Jasper | Wildcats | 19 Dubois | 1980 | Southern Indiana | 2020 | Southern Indiana | |
Mount Carmel | Mount Carmel | Golden Aces | (IL) Wabash | 2003 | N. Egypt (Illinois) | 2019 | Little Illini (Illinois) | |
Mount Vernon | Mount Vernon | Wildcats | 65 Posey | 1980 | Southern Indiana | 2020 | ||
Princeton Community | Princeton | Tigers | 26 Gibson | 1980 | Southern Indiana | 2020 | ||
Tell City | Tell City | Marksmen | 62 Perry | 1980 | Southern Indiana | 2001 | ||
Vincennes Lincoln | Vincennes | Alices | 42 Knox | 1980 | Southern Indiana | 2020 | Southern Indiana | |
Washington | Washington | Hatchets | 14 Daviess | 1980 | Southern Indiana | 2020 |
School | Championships | Years |
---|---|---|
Jasper | 23 | 1981, 1982, 1984*, 1985, 1986*, 1987, 1990, 1994, 1995, 1996*, 1998, 1999*, 2000, 2001, 2004*, 2005, 2006*, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014*, 2015 |
Vincennes Lincoln | 10 | 1983*, 1984*, 1996*, 1997, 1999*, 2002, 2003, 2004*, 2014*, 2017 |
Tell City | 6 | 1980, 1984*, 1988, 1989, 1991*, 1992 |
Mount Carmel | 5 | 2006*, 2007, 2011, 2013, 2014*, 2016 |
Boonville | 4 | 1984*, 1986*, 1991*, 2018 |
Gibson Southern | 1 | 1983* |
Princeton Community | 1 | 1993 |
Mount Vernon | 0 | |
Washington | 0 |
School | Championships | Years |
---|---|---|
Vincennes Lincoln | 21 | 1981, 1982*, 1984*, 1987, 1988, 1989*, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1997, 1998, 1999*, 2002, 2003*, 2004, 2006, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016* |
Jasper | 10 | 1982*, 1989*, 1993, 1996, 1999*, 2000*, 2014*, 2016*, 2018, 2019* |
Washington | 10 | 1983, 1995, 2003*, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2016*, 2017, 2019* |
Princeton Community | 6 | 1984*, 1985, 2009, 2010, 2014*, 2019* |
Boonville | 4 | 1986, 1999*, 2000*, 2001 |
Mount Carmel | 0 | |
Mount Vernon | 0 | |
Tell City | 0 | |
Gibson Southern | 0 |
School | Championships | Years |
---|---|---|
Washington | 10 | 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998*, 1999, 2001, 2003 |
Jasper | 9 | 1982, 1983, 1988, 1991, 1998*, 2005, 2010*, 2012, 2019 |
Boonville | 7 | 1981, 1984*, 1985, 1986, 1987, 2000, 2017* |
Vincennes Lincoln | 6 | 2002, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2017*, 2018 |
Mount Carmel | 4 | 2007, 2008, 2011, 2013 |
Princeton Community | 3 | 2014, 2015, 2016 |
Mount Vernon | 2 | 1984, 2010* |
Tell City | 2 | 1989, 1990 |
Gibson Southern | 0 |
Note: Big Eight Conference championships were determined by a single round-robin among the active members. The Big Eight Conference did not break ties in the standings for championship purposes, instead co-championships were awarded.
Princeton Community High School is a four-year comprehensive secondary school in Princeton, Indiana, United States. The high school is a part of the North Gibson School Corporation. Until March 2016, the school operated a television station, W06BD, from studios at the high school. Princeton Community is the second largest of the three high schools serving Gibson County, Indiana. The others are Gibson Southern, which is larger, and Wood Memorial, which is smaller.
Mount Carmel High School is a public high school in Mt. Carmel, Illinois. It is a part of Wabash Community Unit School District 348. It is the only high school in Wabash County, Illinois, which is in southern Illinois, just across the Wabash River from Gibson and Knox Counties of Indiana.
TheMississippi Athletic Conference is a high school athletic conference whose members are located in the Iowa Quad-Cities, plus three other schools in eastern Iowa.
The Pocket Athletic Conference (PAC) is a high school athletic conference in Southwestern Indiana with its headquarters at Forest Park. It is the largest athletic conference in the state of Indiana with 13 member schools. The conference is composed primarily of Class 3A schools, with a few 2A and one 1A. Schools are currently located in Daviess, Dubois, Gibson, Perry, Pike, Posey, Spencer, and Warrick counties.
The Southern Indiana Athletic Conference (SIAC) is a high school athletic conference based in Evansville, Indiana. Five of the conferences 10 schools; Bosse, Central, Harrison, North, and Reitz; comprise the public Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation. Mater Dei and Memorial are private Catholic high schools run by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Evansville, and the largest member is Castle, a public school located in neighboring Newburgh in Warrick County under the Warrick County School Corporation. The league was founded in 1936, and at one point stretched far across southern and western Indiana: from Mount Vernon in the west to New Albany in the east, and from Evansville in the south to Terre Haute in the north. Jasper and Vincennes Lincoln announced in May 2019 that they would leave the disbanding Big Eight Conference to rejoin the Southern Indiana Athletic Conference beginning with the 2020–21 season.
The Blue Chip Conference is a high school athletic conference in southwestern Indiana, United States. The conference's members are small A or AA high schools located in Daviess, Dubois, Gibson, Knox, and Martin counties. The BCC was founded in 1968, with Barr-Reeve, Bloomfield, Loogootee, North Daviess, North Knox, South Knox, and Springs Valley. Barr-Reeve had to wait until 1969 to be released from the Patoka Valley Conference to play in the league, and Loogootee also had to wait until 1970 to leave the Southwestern Indiana Conference. The conference grew to 11 schools in the mid-1970s, but for the most part has stabilized at nine schools since then with the only exception being the 6 year period between the addition of Wood Memorial in 2000 and loss of Forest Park in 2006 where the count was at 10. Aside from Wood Memorial, which being in Gibson County is on Central Time, the rest of the conference's members are in the Eastern Time Zone.
Gibson Southern High School is a public high school located in Fort Branch, Indiana.
Jasper High School (JHS) is a public high school located in Jasper, Indiana, that serves grades 9 through 12 and is one of five in the Greater Jasper Consolidated Schools' district. The principal is Geoff Mauck. The Vice Principal is Dr. Cassidy Nalley. JHS has an enrollment of approximately 1,050 students. The school's colors are black and gold. The school song is set to the tune "Indiana, Our Indiana", and the mascot is the wildcat.
The Waldo J. Wood Memorial High School, formerly referred to as Oakland City Wood Memorial High School by the IHSAA, now simply as Wood Memorial High School is a public education institution located in Oakland City, Indiana, USA, serving the East Gibson School Corporation and drawing students from Barton, Center and Columbia Townships in the much more sparsely populated eastern third of Gibson County, Indiana. As such, Wood Memorial is the smallest high school in county, being roughly half the sizes of either Gibson Southern or Princeton Community.
The Duneland Athletic Conference (DAC) is a high school athletic conference in Indiana serving eight members of the Indiana High School Athletic Association. Member schools are located in the counties of Lake, LaPorte, and Porter along Indiana's Lake Michigan shore. Each school is classified based on enrollment as 6A or 5A for football and 4A for basketball, the classes for the largest schools in Indiana. The Duneland Conference is also known for its gymnastics programs which have won a combined total of 35 state championship and state runner-up titles.
The Greater South Shore Conference is an eight-member Indiana High School Athletic Association athletic conference spanning Lake and Porter counties in Northwest Indiana. Two other members, Boone Grove and Gary West Side, participate only in football, with Boone Grove otherwise participating in the Porter County Conference and Gary West Side otherwise participating in the Great Lakes Athletic Conference.
The Hoosier Athletic Conference is a ten-member IHSAA-Sanctioned conference located within Benton, Cass, Hamilton, Howard, Jasper, Tippecanoe, Tipton and White counties. The conference first began in 1947, and has been in constant competition except for the 1997–98 school year, when membership dropped to three schools. The conference added four schools from the folding Mid-Indiana Conference in 2015. Lewis Cass exited the conference in 2023 and Logansport was added as the replacement starting in 2024. In 2024 Northwestern will exit the conference filling in for North Miami in the Three Rivers Conference.
The Hoosier Hills Conference is a seven-member, IHSAA-sanctioned athletic conference comprising large 4A and 5A (football)-sized schools in Bartholomew, Clark, Floyd, Jackson, Jennings, and Lawrence in South Central and Southeast Indiana. Madison departed the conference in 2021, thereby reducing its size to seven member schools.
Sagamore Conference is an eight-member IHSAA sanctioned athletic conference comprising 2A and 3A and sized schools in Clinton, Boone, Hendricks, and Montgomery Counties in Central Indiana.
An eight-member IHSAA-Sanctioned Athletic Conference within the Northeastern Indiana counties of Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, Noble, Wells, and Whitley. The conference was started in 1989 as the Northeast Hoosier Conference when six schools from the Northeastern Indiana Athletic Conference joined with two schools from the Allen County Athletic Conference. When the smaller six schools decided to pull out of the conference in 2015, the conference essentially ceased to exist, forcing the much larger Carroll and Homestead into joining the Summit Athletic Conference. The remaining schools, while settling on the current league name, added Huntington North of the North Central Conference and Leo of the Allen County Athletic Conference, who are more similar in size to the rest of the schools. While the six NEHC schools technically dropped out, they never actually left the league, having succeeded in forcing out the two large Fort Wayne schools, ended up staying in the league. This is not an unheard of tactic, as most notably Ohio's Chagrin Valley Conference pulled virtually the same move around the same time.
The Northwest Crossroads Conference is a seven-member IHSAA-sanctioned athletic conference. Six of the seven institutions are in Lake County, while the sixth, Kankakee Valley, is in neighboring Jasper County. This conference was created in 2007, following the disbandment of the Lake Athletic Conference. Griffith left the conference after the 2016–17 school year to join the Greater South Shore Athletic Conference (IHSAA).
The Western Indiana Conference is the name of two IHSAA-sanctioned conferences based in West Central Indiana. The first formed as an eight-team league that formed as a basketball league in 1944 as the West Central Conference. The league started expanding in 1945 and changed its name to the Western Indiana Conference. With consolidation forcing many membership changes in the 1970s, the conference folded at four members in 1983.
The Warrick County School Corporation (WCSC) is the second largest public school-governing body in Southwestern Indiana, and the 27th largest in the state. It is responsible for providing education to the second largest county in the area, Warrick County; its boundaries are that of the county.
The Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) is the arbiter of interscholastic competition among public and private high schools in the U.S. state of Indiana.