History
1971-1993
The Fox Valley Christian Conference was formed in 1971 when its predecessor, the Fox Valley Catholic Conference, accepted its first non-Catholic member (Fox Valley Lutheran High School in Appleton). [1] The new conference made its debut with ten schools: Abbot Pennings in De Pere, Fox Valley Lutheran, Lourdes Academy in Oshkosh, Marinette Central Catholic, Our Lady of Premontre in Green Bay, Roncalli in Manitowoc, St. John in Little Chute, St. Mary Catholic in Neenah, St. Mary's Springs in Fond du Lac and Xavier in Appleton. [2] All Catholic members of the conference with the exception of one were affiliated with the Green Bay diocese (St. Mary's Springs was part of the Milwaukee archdiocese). The conference accepted its first all-girls school when St. Joseph Academy in Green Bay joined in 1972. [3] The next year, St. John High School left the conference when the school closed. [4] Membership was stable for the next seventeen years until the three Catholic high schools in the Green Bay area (Pennings, Premontre and St. Joseph) merged into Notre Dame Academy in 1990. [5] The new school inherited their predecessors' place in the Fox Valley Christian Conference. Manitowoc Lutheran would join the conference in 1991 to bring membership to nine schools. [6]
1993-1999
In 1993, Notre Dame would move to the Fox River Valley Conference, a conference of public high schools sponsored by the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association. [7] This turned out to be a harbinger of things to come, as in 1997, WISAA agreed to a merger with the WIAA to be finalized by the 2000-01 school year. [8] The next year, the Fox Valley Christian Conference lost two schools to the Midwest Classic Conference: Lourdes Academy and St. Mary Catholic. [9] The final six schools would play one more year before the conference disbanded in 1999. [10] All member schools went on to join WIAA-sponsored conferences prior to the merger being final.
Football
The Fox Valley Christian Conference sponsored football for most of its history, with the membership roster mostly coinciding with the conference's full roster. Nine out of the conference's ten full members competed in the initial season with Fox Valley Lutheran joining in 1972. [1] The next year, St. John left the conference after closing its doors, [4] and by 1987 the FVCC was down to seven football-playing members with the departure of Marinette Catholic Central [11] and St. Mary Catholic. [12] The latter would return for the 1988 season, when the conference was divided by school size with three members (Fox Valley Lutheran, Roncalli and Xavier) carrying dual affiliation: [13]
| Large Schools | Small Schools |
|---|---|
| Abbot Pennings | Fox Valley Lutheran |
| Fox Valley Lutheran | Lourdes Academy |
| Our Lady of Premontre | Roncalli |
| Roncalli | St. Mary Catholic |
| St. Mary's Springs | Xavier |
| Xavier |
The Large Schools division experienced a net loss of one school in 1990 when Notre Dame Academy was created from the merger of Abbot Pennings and Our Lady of Premontre. [5] Their stay would be short, leaving after only two seasons to compete as an independent before joining the Fox River Valley Conference in 1993. [7] The five remaining schools (plus new members Manitowoc Lutheran, resumed competition as a single division in 1992. The membership ranks thinned to five schools for the 1996 season, with the FVCC losing Lourdes Academy to the Wisconsin Independent Football Association's Classic Division. [14] This would also be the conference's last season, as four members (Fox Valley Lutheran, Manitowoc Lutheran, St. Mary's Springs and Xavier) joined with three former WIFA members (Edgewood, Luther Prep and Winnebago Lutheran) to form the Wisconsin Christian Football Conference. [15]
