History
1925-1959
The Little Ten Conference was founded in 1925 by ten medium- to smaller-sized schools in south central Wisconsin: Beaver Dam, Berlin, Columbus, Hartford Union, Horicon, Mayville, Portage, Ripon, Watertown and Waupun. [1] The conference went through a few membership changes during its first few seasons, starting with the loss of Portage to the South Central Conference in 1926 [2] [3] and Watertown to the Southern Six in 1928. [4] [5] The conference added West Bend in 1929 [6] [7] and Oconomowoc in 1930 to bring conference membership back up to ten. [8] During the late 1940s and early 1950s, several schools in the northern and western suburbs of the Milwaukee area (Cedarburg, Menomonee Falls, Port Washington and former members Watertown) applied for membership in the Little Ten multiple times, only to be rejected at each attempt over concerns about managing a fourteen-member conference. [9] [10] [11] This series of rejections led to the formation of the Braveland Conference in 1953 by the four failed Little Ten applicants. [12] The Little Ten would finally expand its membership roster in 1959, when Arrowhead joined from the Southeastern Wisconsin Conference and Watertown rejoined from the Braveland Conference. [13]
1959-1970
With conference membership increasing to twelve, the Little Ten subdivided into Northern and Southern Divisions for the 1959-60 school year: [14]
| Northern Little Ten | Southern Little Ten |
|---|---|
| Berlin | Arrowhead |
| Columbus | Beaver Dam |
| Horicon | Hartford Union |
| Mayville | Oconomowoc |
| Ripon | Watertown |
| Waupun | West Bend |
In 1965, Arrowhead left to join the Southeastern Badger Conference, [15] [16] bringing conference membership to eleven. By the late 1960s, increasing gaps in enrollment between the smaller schools in the Northern Little Ten and the larger schools in the Southern Little Ten were creating problems with competitive balance, and the schools in the Southern Little Ten began looking to secede from the conference. [17] [18] [19] The conference officially subdivided into two separate conferences in 1966 [20] and both conferences completely disbanded in 1970. The five Southern Little Ten members (six with the split of West Bend into East and West) [21] joined with Waupun, who had the highest enrollment in the Northern Little Ten, [22] to form the Wisconsin Little Ten Conference. [23] The five schools in the Northern Little Ten disbanded to find other conferences with schools more similar in enrollment size. [24] [25]
