History
The Rock River Valley League was formed in 1922 by eight medium-sized high schools near the Rock River in south central Wisconsin: Cambridge, Edgerton, Fort Atkinson, Jefferson, Lake Mills, Milton, Stoughton and Whitewater. [1] Member schools were located in Dane, Jefferson, Rock and Walworth Counties. The league would grow to nine schools in 1925 with the addition of Evansville to the loop. [2] Cambridge would leave the conference in 1927 after one season of dual membership with the Madison Suburban Conference. [3] In 1928, the Rock River Valley Conference lost three schools (Edgerton, Fort Atkinson and Stoughton) to the newly formed Southern Six Conference. [4] The league continued with five schools until Brodhead, who had recently left the smaller State Line League, joined in 1932. [5] Whitewater left the Rock River Valley League in 1937 to join the Southern Five Conference. [6] They were replaced by their crosstown rivals, College High School. [7] In 1944, Brodhead left the conference to rejoin the State Line League. [8] They were replaced by the "B" team from Janesville High School, whose varsity program belonged to the larger Big Eight Conference. [9] College High left the conference in 1945 to join the Southern Regional Conference, [10] leaving membership at five schools for the remainder of the conference's history. The Rock River Valley League was folded in 1952 when the four varsity members (Evansville, Jefferson, Lake Mills and Milton) would join with five former Southern Ten Conference schools (Edgerton, Fort Atkinson, Monroe, Stoughton and Wisconsin High) and Middleton (formerly of the Madison Suburban Conference) to form the new Badger Conference. [11]
