History
1940–1952
The Midwest Prep Conference began play in 1940 as the Wisconsin Prep Conference with five private high schools in southeastern Wisconsin. Three were located in the Milwaukee area (Lutheran High, Milwaukee Country Day, and Milwaukee University), one in Watertown (Northwestern Prep) and one in Beaver Dam (Wayland Academy). [1] Northwestern Military & Naval Academy in Lake Geneva had a brief stint in the conference from 1945 to 1949, [2] and their entry coincided with the addition of football as a sponsored sport. They were replaced by Racine Lutheran High School in 1950. [3]
1952–1964
In 1952, the Wisconsin Prep Conference added two schools to bring the membership roster to eight. Both schools were located in Illinois (Lake Forest Academy and North Shore Country Day School in Winnetka). With the addition of Illinois-based schools to the loop came a new name: the Midwest Prep Conference. [4] North Shore Country Day School's tenure in the conference would be brief, as they left in 1954. [5] The next year, Lutheran High School in Milwaukee was split up by the two ecclesiastical organizations running the school. Milwaukee Lutheran High School was opened by the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod and Wisconsin Lutheran High School was established by the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, both in 1955. [6]
1964-1970
The year 1964 saw numerous changes to Midwest Prep Conference membership with a net loss of two members. Milwaukee Country Day School and Milwaukee University School (along with the all-girls Milwaukee-Downer Seminary) merged to form the University School of Milwaukee. The new school took over both MCDS’'s campus in Whitefish Bay and MUS's River Hills campus, along with both predecessor schools' conference membership. [7] The Midwest Prep also lost Lake Forest Academy and Wayland Academy, becoming a Wisconsin-only conference in the process. [8] The entry of Concordia College Prep in Milwaukee to the conference brought its membership roster to six members. St. John's Military Academy in Delafield applied for membership along with Concordia but was rejected because of scheduling issues. [9] Fox Valley Lutheran High School in Appleton joined the Midwest Prep Conference in 1965 [10] accompanied with Wayland Academy's return to the circuit, [11] bringing the total number of members back up to eight schools. In 1968, seven of the eight member schools of the Midwest Prep Conference joined the Wisconsin Independent Schools Athletic Association, an organization for interscholastic athletics composed entirely of parochial and private schools. [12] Northwestern Prep was the only holdout, not joining WISAA until 1974. [13]
1970–1983
In 1970, Martin Luther High School in Greendale joined the Midwest Prep Conference, [14] replacing Concordia Prep, which had left the conference to compete as an independent before closing its doors the next year. [15] [16] Fox Valley Lutheran left the Midwest Prep Conference in 1971 to join the Fox Valley Christian Conference, looking to cut down on long travel distances. [17] St. Mary's High School in Burlington, which had been left without conference affiliation when the Southeastern Badger Conference disbanded, replaced Fox Valley Lutheran. [18] The last changes to conference membership occurred in 1974, when Milwaukee Lutheran joined the Metro Conference [19] and Wisconsin Lutheran left for the Wisconsin Little Ten Conference. [20] St. John's Military Academy in Delafield came over from the Classic Conference to replace the two exiting schools, ten years after its initial attempt to gain conference membership. [21] The conference featured the same seven members for the remainder of its existence, with the exception of St. Lawrence Seminary in Mount Calvary joining as an associate member for football in 1981. [22] In 1983 the Midwest Prep Conference joined with nine out of the eleven schools from the Classic Conference (Central Wisconsin Christian, Kettle Moraine Lutheran, Notre Dame, Sheboygan Christian, Sheboygan Lutheran, Shoreland Lutheran, St. Lawrence Seminary, and The Prairie School) to form the Midwest Classic Conference. [23]
