The Interscholastic League of Honolulu (ILH) is an athletic activity league whose membership is primarily private

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

s in

Honolulu, Hawai'i Honolulu (; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an Unincorporated area, unincorporated county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of H ...

. The ILH has 24 member schools with over 13,000 student athletes participating in 37 different sports including cross country, track and field, swimming and diving, football, baseball, basketball, soccer, canoe paddling, kayaking, air riflery, water polo, judo, cheerleading, and sailing.

History

The ILH was founded in 1909 with

Punahou Punahou School (known as Oahu College until 1934) is a private, co-educational, college preparatory school in Honolulu, Hawaii. More than 3,700 students attend the school from kindergarten through twelfth grade, 12th grade. Protestant missionar ...

, Kamehameha and McKinley High School making up the original membership. A number of public and private institutions joined soon after to bolster membership. In 1911 the ILH passed a rule stating that all players must be students, after schools supplemented their teams with recent graduates. Along with the large number of private institutions that composed the membership of the ILH, there were five public high schools situated in

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

that were original members of the league:

Farrington High School Governor Wallace Rider Farrington High School is a public grades 9–12 high school located in the Kalihi district of Honolulu on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, United States. The school is named after the late Wallace Rider Farrington, the sixth g ...

Kaimuki High School Kaimuki High School is a WASC-accredited four-year public high school located in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. Kaimuki High School falls under the jurisdiction of the Hawaii Department of Education. It is bordered by the Manoa-Palolo Drainage ...

, McKinley High School, Roosevelt High School and

Kalani High School Kalani High School is a four-year public high school located in East Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. Kalani is a part of the Hawaii Department of Education. Kalani is located on Kalanianaole Highway. It is accredited by the Western Association of Schools ...

. In 1970, these five schools left the ILH to join the

Oahu Interscholastic Association The Oahu Interscholastic Association (OIA) is an athletic conference composed of all public secondary schools on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, U.S.A. The OIA was first founded in 1940 as the Rural Oahu Interscholastic Association (ROIA). The five ...

, a league now comprising all the public secondary schools on the island, leaving the ILH membership composed primarily with private institutions.

Operations

The Interscholastic League of Honolulu is governed by a set of policies that cover aspects such as: eligibility of students, age limits, academic standing, sports participation, outside participation rules and a codified transfer policy between teams. As a large number of schools in the ILH have very small enrollment numbers, many schools cannot field teams that require a large number of players such as football, baseball, wrestling, etc. In response to this problem, and to give their students a chance to compete in these sports, these schools pool their players together and play under the moniker " Pac-Five". Pac-Five participates in many of the various sports offered by the ILH. Unfortunately for this combined athletic program, the athletes are not allowed to participate and score as a team in state championship individual sports. In this case, the athletes from each school must compete under their own school name, making it extremely difficult to win team awards due to the failure to meet the minimum number of athletes participating in an event in order to achieve a high team score.

League events

Tournaments hosted by the Interscholastic League of Honolulu have always been some of the most popular events in the State of Hawaii. Events such as the old Thanksgiving Day football game would annually draw crowds upwards of 20,000 to

Honolulu Stadium Honolulu Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium located in the Moiliili district of Honolulu, Hawai'i, at the corner of King and Isenberg Streets. Opened in 1926, it was the primary sports venue in Hawaii preceding Aloha Stadium. During its final y ...

to watch the league crown its champion. Although the

Turkey Day Game American football is one of the many traditions in American culture that is associated with Thanksgiving Day. Virtually every level of football, from amateur and high school to college and the NFL (including the CFL on Canadian Thanksgiving), ...

has long been defunct, avid fans still often commute from neighbor islands to

O'ahu Oahu () ( Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over two-thirds of the population of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The island of O’ ...

to attend conference games in a wide range of sports.

Member institutions

:*Combined team

Former members

References

External links

Official website of the Interscholastic League of HonoluluPac Five website
{{Interscholastic League of Honolulu Hawaii high school athletic conferences Sports leagues established in 1909 1909 establishments in Hawaii