The Mountain Valley Conference (MVC) was an athletic conference consisting of six large high schools and four school districts from

Monroe County Monroe County may refer to seventeen counties in the United States, all named for James Monroe: * Monroe County, Alabama *Monroe County, Arkansas * Monroe County, Florida * Monroe County, Georgia *Monroe County, Illinois *Monroe County, Indian ...

and the

Lehighton Area School District The Lehighton Area School District is school district located just north of the Blue Mountain range the Lehigh River in Carbon County, in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The district is composed of four communities which are ...

from Carbon County, Pennsylvania in the United States. It was part of District XI of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA). In 2014, its teams were mostly assimilated into the 18-team league of large eastern and northeastern Pennsylvania high schools known as the

Eastern Pennsylvania Conference The Eastern Pennsylvania Conference (known informally as EPC, EPC18 and East Penn Conference) is an athletic conference consisting of 18 large high schools from Lehigh, Monroe, Northampton, and Pike counties in the Lehigh Valley and Pocono M ...

History

There had been widespread discussion about high school league realignment in the Lehigh Valley starting in late 1990 and early 1991. In the fall of 1993, the Mountain Valley Conference was formed. The new league included all the public high schools in

at the time: Stroudsburg, East Stroudsburg, Pocono Mountain, and Pleasant Valley High Schools, plus

Nazareth Nazareth ( ; ar, النَّاصِرَة, ''an-Nāṣira''; he, נָצְרַת, ''Nāṣəraṯ''; arc, ܢܨܪܬ, ''Naṣrath'') is the largest city in the Northern District of Israel. Nazareth is known as "the Arab capital of Israel". In ...

and

Northampton Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...

High Schools from Northampton County. Lehighton High School also later joined the new league, giving it an initial membership of seven schools when competition began in the 1994-95 school year. After the 1997-98 school year, the MVC added more schools in

Lehigh Lehigh may refer to: Places United States *Lehigh, Iowa *Lehigh, Kansas *Lehigh, Oklahoma *Lehigh, Barbour County, West Virginia *Lehigh, Wisconsin *Lehigh Acres, Florida *Lehigh Township (disambiguation) *Lehigh Valley, a region in eastern Penns ...

and

Counties: Easton,

Freedom Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving on ...

, Liberty, Parkland, and Whitehall all joined the league. After 2001-02, the seven schools in Lehigh and Northampton Counties left the league to help form the Lehigh Valley Conference.

East Stroudsburg Area School District East Stroudsburg Area School District is a large, rural public school district located in Monroe and Pike Counties the Poconos of northeast Pennsylvania. The District is one of the 500 public school districts of Pennsylvania. East Stroudsburg Ar ...

opened a new high school near the turn of the century, and

Pocono Mountain School District Pocono Mountain School District (PMSD for short) is a large, rural public school district located in Monroe County in Northeastern Pennsylvania. As of the 2020–21 school year, the district had an enrollment of 8,290 students in its schools, ac ...

opened a new high school in 2002; both new schools were added to the MVC for the start of the 2002-03 school year. MVC membership has been stable from 2002 to 2012. In 2012, Allentown's two large public schools, Dieruff High School and

William Allen High School William Allen High School is one of two large, urban public high schools of the Allentown School District in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The school provides public education for grades 9 through 12. William Allen High School is located at 106 North 17 ...

, joined the MVC as associate members for football only for a four-year term. All schools voted to allow both Allentown teams into the conference with only Lehighton voting against it. In the 2014-2015 season, six

schools became part of the Lehigh Valley Conference, expanding that conference to a large 18-team super conference, which was subsequently renamed the

. Lehighton left the Mountain Valley Conference in most sports and now participate in the Schuylkill League. They play football in the Anthracite Football League and act as an independent team in field hockey.

High schools

The seven high school teams that previously comprised the Mountain Valley Conference (and their locations) were: * East Stroudsburg South Cavaliers (

East Stroudsburg East Stroudsburg is a borough in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located in the Poconos region of the state. Originally known as "Dansbury", East Stroudsburg was renamed for geographic reasons when the Delaware, Lackawanna, and ...

). * East Stroudsburg North Timberwolves ( Bushkill) * Pocono Mountain East Cardinals ( Swiftwater) * Pocono Mountain West Panthers ( Pocono Summit) * Stroudsburg Mountaineers ( Stroudsburg) * Pleasant Valley Bears ( Brodheadsville) *

Lehighton Lehighton () is a borough in Carbon County, Pennsylvania. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Lehighton is located northwest of Allentown and northwest of Philadelphia. Due in part to water power from the Lehigh River, Lehighton was an e ...

Indians (

) Football only: *

Allen Allen, Allen's or Allens may refer to: Buildings * Allen Arena, an indoor arena at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee * Allen Center, a skyscraper complex in downtown Houston, Texas * Allen Fieldhouse, an indoor sports arena on the Univer ...

Canaries ( Allentown) * Dieruff Huskies (Allentown)

District

The Mountain Valley Conference was part of District XI of the PIAA.

Mountain Valley Conference

National Football League (NFL)

Kyshoen Jarrett Kyshoen Jarrett (born May 4, 1993) is an American football coach who is currently a graduate assistant for the Virginia Tech Hokies football team. He was also a former safety who played for the Washington Redskins of the National Football League ...

, former

strong safety Safety is a position in gridiron football on the defense. The safeties are defensive backs who line up ten to fifteen yards from the line of scrimmage. There are two variations of the position: the free safety and the strong safety. Their dut ...

, Washington Redskins (East Stroudsburg South High School) *

James Mungro James Olevia Mungro II (born February 13, 1978) is a former American football running back. He retired from the National Football League (NFL) due to a severe ACL injury he received in a pre-season game in 2006. His entire NFL career was with ...

, former running back,

Indianapolis Colts The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. The Colts compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) South division. Since the 2008 ...

and

Super Bowl XLI Super Bowl XLI was an American football game played between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Indianapolis Colts and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Chicago Bears to decide the National Football League (NFL) champio ...

champion (East Stroudsburg South High School) *

Chris Neild Chris Neild (born December 1, 1987) is a former American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rect ...

, former nose tackle,

Houston Texans The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston. The Texans compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC South, South division, and play their home ga ...

and Washington Redskins (Stroudsburg High School)

Arena Football League (AFL)

* Kevin Nagle, former

fullback Fullback or Full back may refer to: Sports * A position in various kinds of football, including: ** Full-back (association football), in association football (soccer), a defender playing in a wide position ** Fullback (gridiron football), in Americ ...

and linebacker, Colorado Crush and Orlando Predators (Pleasant Valley High School)

References

External links

Mountain Valley Conference
archived former website {{Mountain Valley Conference (Pennsylvania) Monroe County, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania high school sports conferences Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association