The Midwest Athletic Conference is a high school athletic conference in northwestern Indiana, which has existed in two different incarnations, with a third planned to form in 2018. The original conference began in 1932, consisting of schools that were larger than most of their counterparts in their local county leagues. [1] The schools were based in Benton, Fountain, Jasper, Newton, Tippecanoe, Warren, and White counties. The forming of the Kankakee Valley Conference the next year caused a slight fluctuation over the next couple of years, as schools realigned themselves within the two leagues, with some schools claiming dual membership. [2] The league folded in 1947, as size disparities and willingness to sponsor some sports (such as football, some schools played 11-man or 8-man football, and others didn't sponsor the sport) led to schools going their separate ways.
The second incarnation of the conference began in 1955 with eight schools located in Benton, Carroll, Cass, Newton, and White counties, with largely different members than its first lineup. [3] The MAC had a tumultuous history of membership turnover for much of its history, but had stabilized at 10 members with West Central and Winamac joining in 1980 and 1981, respectively. The only changes over the next 34 years were Rossville and Carroll joining the Hoosier Heartland Conference in 1989 and 1992, respectively, leaving a stable 8 school membership for more than two decades. In 2013, Caston, Pioneer, and Winamac announced that they were leaving the Conference to join with 2 other schools from the Northern State Conference as well as Independent North Judson for the 2015–2016 school year. This touched off an exodus that ended the conference, as West Central joined Caston, Pioneer, and Winamac in the Hoosier North Athletic Conference, while Frontier and Tri-County joined the Hoosier Heartland Conference. South Newton joined the Sangamon Valley Conference of Illinois. [4] North White was the only school that had not been accepted to another conference immediately, though they were accepted as a football-only member of the Hoosier Heartland. The Conference reformed in 2017, with six former schools rejoining. [5]
School | Location | Mascot | Colors | # / County | Enrollment | Class FB Class | Year joined | Previous conference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Frontier 1 | Chalmers | Falcons | 91 White | 227 | 1A 1A | 1965 2018 | none (new school) Hoosier Heartland | |
North Newton 2 | Morocco | Spartans | 56 Newton | 452 | 2A 2A | 1967 2018 | Greater South Shore Independents | |
North White 3 | Monon | Vikings | 91 White | 264 | 1A 1A | 1963 2018 | none (new school) Independents | |
South Newton 4 | Kentland | Rebels | 56 Newton | 264 | 1A 1A | 1966 2018 | none (new school) Sangamon Valley (IL) | |
Tri-County 1 | Wolcott | Cavaliers | 91 White | 230 | 1A 1A | 1971 2018 | none (new school) Hoosier Heartland | |
West Central 5 | Francesville | Trojans | 66 Pulaski | 280 | 1A 1A | 1967 1980 2018 | none (new school) Northwest Hoosier Hoosier North |
•Football (A) 2017
•Football (A) 2018
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.
The Hoosier Heartland Conference is an IHSAA-Sanctioned Athletic Conference in North Central Indiana. It comprises mainly single A and smaller AA schools. Lafayette Central Catholic joined the Hoosier Athletic Conference after the 2010–11 school year, and was replaced by Sheridan, who joined 2012. With the major conference realignment in Indiana in 2015, the conference picked up four schools from neighboring conferences that were folding, as well as a football-only member to balance the new football divisions. However, with the Midwest Conference reforming, the conference will be down to eight schools for the 2018–19 school year, as Delphi will rejoin the conference in 2019.
The Three Rivers Conference is a high school athletic conference in northeast Indiana, consisting of schools in Cass, Fulton, Miami, Wabash, and Whitley counties.
The Allen County Athletic Conference (ACAC) is a seven-member Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) conference. While all of its charter schools are and were located in Allen County, it also has member schools from Adams, Jay, and Wells counties. The ACAC, along with the Porter County Conference, are the only two county conferences left in existence.
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.
The Mid-Hoosier Conference is a seven-member IHSAA-sanctioned athletic association located within Bartholomew, Decatur, Johnson, and Shelby Counties in Central Indiana.
The North Central Conference is an IHSAA-sanctioned athletic conference consisting of ten large high schools in Cass, Delaware, Grant, Howard, Madison, Marion, Tippecanoe, and Wayne Counties across Central and North Central Indiana. Most of these schools are in 35,000+ population towns like Anderson, Marion, Kokomo, Lafayette, Muncie, and Richmond. Several of the nation's largest gymnasiums belong to members of this conference.
The Southwestern Indiana Athletic Conference (SWIAC), is an eight-member IHSAA-sanctioned athletic conference located within Clay, Daviess, Greene and Sullivan Counties in Southwest and West Central Indiana. North Central (Farmersburg) joined in 2010 with the folding of the Tri-River Conference. Prior to that time, Clay City, Linton Stockton, Shakamak, and Union (Dugger) also participated in the Tri-River Conference concurrently while playing in the SWIAC. The conference was originally formed in 1939, but information on early membership between then and 1958 is incomplete.
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 White River Conference was an IHSAA-sanctioned conference located within rural areas of East Central Indiana, that existed twice, once from 1954 to 1977, and from 1989 to 2010. The first version of the conference was founded as a home for high schools in Madison County who weren't in the Central Indiana Athletic Conference. The conference would expand quickly from six to nine schools, as two new high schools in Anderson and Middletown, a school in Henry County, were added within two years. Membership was generally not stable until 1969, as Madison Heights left, Highland was forced out and eventually added back into the conference, St. Mary's closed, member schools consolidated, and schools from neighboring Delaware and Hancock counties were added. Eventually, large disparities in enrollment causing the conference to disband, as city and consolidated schools outgrew their rural counterparts.. Schools would move into the Big Blue River Conference, Classic Athletic Conference, and Mid-Eastern Conference.
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.
The Dixie Athletic Conference was a short-lived IHSAA-sanctioned conference in Southern Indiana. The conference was formed in 1961 by smaller, far-flung schools. In 1965, left with only four schools, it merged with the Southern Monon Conference to form the Dixie-Monon Conference.
The Tippecanoe Valley Athletic Conference was an IHSAA-sanctioned small-school conference in Fulton and Pulaski counties in northern Indiana. The conference formed as the Pulaski County Conference in 1919, as all of the county schools outside of Winamac organized together.
The Mid-Central Conference was a short-lived IHSAA-sanctioned conference based in Northwest-Central Indiana. Formed in 1966, and based in Boone, Carroll, Clinton, and Tippecanoe counties, the conference was hit hard by the consolidation of smaller Tippecanoe County schools into Harrison and McCutcheon high schools. The consolidation of the latter left the conference with three schools, effectively ending it. The same three schools would form the Hoosier Heartland Conference 15 years later, which is another small-school conference with a similar geographic footprint.
There were numerous conferences within the IHSAA that were made up of schools based entirely in one county. Many of these "County Conferences" also contained schools from neighboring counties that were either geographically closer or smaller than the other schools in their home county. These conferences would fold when schools would consolidate and seek out other, more expansive conferences that included similar-sized schools. The starting date of many of these conferences is hard to confirm, so the listing for many of these leagues uses the earliest date that can be confirmed.
The Hoosier North Athletic Conference is an IHSAA-sanctioned conference in northwestern Indiana, that began in 2015. The conference contains eight schools in six counties, but may expand to include more schools in the future.
The State Corner Conference was an IHSAA-sanctioned conference located in far Northeast Indiana. The conference started in 1935 competing in basketball, football, and track. The league survived a major shakeup in 1941 as half of the original league left to return to their previous conferences, being replaced by smaller schools in the footprint and dropping football. Because of the league's limited offerings, the schools would also compete within their county-based leagues. The league would fold in 1967, as consolidation had whittled the league to three schools.
South Newton High School is a multi-community high school consisting of grades 9-12 located in rural Newton County, between the incorporated towns of Kentland, Brook, and Goodland, Indiana. The Elementary and Middle School facilities are located adjacent to the high school.