The Northern Illinois Conference (NIC-10) is a high school athletic conference consisting of nine high

public schools Public school may refer to: *State school (known as a public school in many countries), a no-fee school, publicly funded and operated by the government *Public school (United Kingdom), certain elite fee-charging independent schools in England and ...

and one

Catholic school Catholic schools are pre-primary, primary and secondary educational institutions administered under the aegis or in association with the Catholic Church. , the Catholic Church operates the world's largest religious, non-governmental school syste ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

' Boone,

Stephenson Stephenson is a medieval patronymic surname meaning "son of Stephen". The earliest public record is found in the county of Huntingdonshire in 1279. There are variant spellings including Stevenson. People with the surname include: *Ashley Stephen ...

, and

Winnebago Winnebago can refer to: * The exonym of the Ho-Chunk tribe of Native North Americans with reservations in Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisconsin ** Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, a federally recognized tribe group in the state ** The Winnebago language of the ...

Counties. Member schools are also full members of the

Illinois High School Association The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) is an association that regulates competition of interscholastic sports and some interscholastic activities at the high school level for the state of Illinois. It is a charter member of the National Fed ...

(IHSA), and are among the larger schools in that area, all competing in Class AA (in the two class system) of IHSA competitions.

Current members

* Depending on the sport/activity, schools compete in a variety of class systems. The classes are listed in that order in this table.

Previous members

History

The Northern Illinois High School Conference (NIHSC) was founded in 1916 as a high school football conference. Boys track and basketball soon followed, and other sports were added over time. Original members included Freeport High School, Rockford High School, Joliet High School, Elgin High School, DeKalb High School, Aurora East High School, and Aurora West High School. DeKalb withdrew after one season, and for two years the league operated with six schools. The flu pandemic of 1918, which hit the Rockford area particularly hard, caused the cancellation of that year’s football season, and when league play returned in 1919, DeKalb rejoined. At this time, newspapers began referring to the league as the Big 7 for brevity. In 1929, DeKalb again left the conference with six teams, and the league was known as the Big 6 until LaSalle-Peru High School joined in 1936. In the spring of 1940, Rockford High School was replaced by Rockford West and Rockford East, and the conference naturally became the Big 8. 1940 to 1960 was a period of stability, as the league operated with the same eight members spread over five far-flung counties. However, the high school building boom that began throughout northern Illinois in the late 1950s led to a series of conference realignments that brought rapid changes and a geographic shift to the Big 8. The first in this series of moves was Joliet’s departure for the South Suburban Conference in 1960. The Steelmen were replaced by the newly opened Rockford Auburn High School that same year. In 1963, NIHSC charter members East Aurora, West Aurora, and Elgin departed to help form the new Upstate 8 Conference, and Harlem High School, Belvidere High School, and the newly opened Rockford Guilford High School immediately stepped in to take their place. With the other seven league members now concentrated in the farthest reaches of northern Illinois, LaSalle-Peru withdrew in 1964 to join the North Central Illinois Conference, which was closer to home. Boylan Central Catholic High School, the league’s only private school, replaced the Cavaliers that same year. The Big 8 became the Big 9 with the addition of Rockford Jefferson High School in 1971. In 1982, Hononegah High School joined the league, and to avoid the obvious confusion with the collegiate Big 10, the league returned to its roots by becoming the Northern Illinois Conference (NIC-10). The league became the NIC-9 when Rockford West was closed after the 1988–89 school year, and reverted to NIC-10 when Belvidere North High School opened in 2007. Freeport High School remains the only original member of the conference.

Expansion

In April 2018, requests from both

Kaneland High School Kaneland High School, or KHS, is a public four-year high school located in Maple Park, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, United States. It is part of Kaneland Community Unit School District 302. History Kaneland first opened in 1958. In '' ...

and DeKalb High School for consideration to be admitted to the conference starting in the 2019-20 school year were sent to the NIC-10 president, Freeport principal Dr. Beth Summers. On May 14, 2018, Kaneland was rejected by the NIC-10 and joined the Interstate Eight Conference. Based on a May 24, 2018 announcement, the NIC-10 unanimously voted to table discussions toward expansion, denying DeKalb the opportunity to return to the conference after a 90 year absence.

Membership timeline

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:1350 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1916 till:2022 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:20 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 #> to display a count on left side of graph, use "left:20" to suppress the count, use "left:20"<# Colors = id:barcolor id:line value:pink id:bg value:white id:Full value:rgb(0.742,0.727,0.852) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports id:FullxF value:rgb(0.551,0.824,0.777) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports except for football id:AssocF value:rgb(0.98,0.5,0.445) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member for football only id:AssocOS value:rgb(0.78,0.391,0.654) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in some sports, but not all (consider identifying in legend or a footnote) id:OtherC1 value:rgb(0.996,0.996,0.699) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference id:OtherC2 value:rgb(0.988,0.703,0.383) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference where OtherC1 has already been used, to distinguish the two PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:1 color:Full from:1916 till:1917 text:DeKalb (1916) (1919–1929) bar:1 color:Full from:1919 till:1929 text: bar:2 color:Full from:1916 till:1940 text:Rockford (HS) (1916–1940) bar:2 color:white from:1940 till:end text:School Closed - Rockford East maintains history of school bar:3 color:Full from:1916 till:1963 text:Aurora East (1916-1963) bar:3 color:white from:1963 till:end text:Moved to the Upstate 8 Conference bar:4 color:Full from:1916 till:1963 text:Aurora West (1916-1963) bar:4 color:white from:1963 till:end text:Moved to the Upstate 8 Conference bar:5 color:Full from:1916 till:1963 text:Elgin (1916–1963) bar:5 color:white from:1963 till:end text:Moved to the Upstate 8 Conference bar:6 color:Full from:1916 till:1963 text:Joliet (1916–1960) bar:6 color:white from:1963 till:end text:Moved to the South Suburban Conference bar:7 color:Full from:1916 till:end text:Freeport (1916–Present) bar:8 color:Full from:1929 till:1964 text:LaSalle-Peru (1936-1964) bar:8 color:white from:1964 till:end text:Moved to the North Central Illinois Conference bar:9 color:Full from:1940 till:end text:Rockford East (1940-Present) bar:10 color:Full from:1940 till:1989 text:Rockford West (1940-1989) bar:10 color:white from:1989 till:end text:School Closed - West converts to a middle school bar:11 color:Full from:1960 till:end text:Rockford Auburn (1960-Present) bar:12 color:Full from:1963 till:end text:Machesney Park Harlem (1963–Present) bar:13 color:Full from:1963 till:end text:Rockford Guiford (1963-Present) bar:14 color:Full from:1963 till:end text:Belvidere (1963–Present) bar:15 color:Full from:1964 till:end text:Rockford Boylan (1964–Present) bar:16 color:Full from:1971 till:end text:Rockford Jefferson (1971-Present) bar:17 color:Full from:1982 till:end text:Rockton Hononegah (1982–Present) bar:18 color:Full from:2006 till:end text:Belvidere North (2006-Present) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:1920 TextData = fontsize:L textcolor:black pos:(0,30) tabs:(400-center) text:^"NIC-10 Membership History" #> If the chart uses more than one bar color, add a legend by selecting the appropriate fields from the following six options (use only the colors that are used in the graphic.) Leave a blank line after the end of the timeline, then add a line with the selected values from the list, separated by a space. <#

State championships

69 IHSA State Championships have been earned by the conference membership: *

Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

(boys)-9: Rockford High School (1918–19, 1938–39); Elgin (1923–24, 24–25); Freeport (1925–26, 50–51); Joliet Township (1936–37); Rockford West (1954–55, 55–56) *

Bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), though ...

(boys)-8: Jefferson (2002–03); Freeport (2007–08); Guilford (2010–11, 2013–14); Hononegah (2014–15, 2017–18); Harlem (2016–17, 2018–19) * Bowling (girls)-9: Rockford East (1996–97); Jefferson (2007–08); Harlem (1999–2000, 2000–01, 2001–02, 2004–05, 2010–11, 2016–17, 2017-18) *

Chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

-3: Jefferson (1990–91); Auburn (1991–92, 92–93) *

Competitive Cheerleading Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense physical activity. It can be performed to motivate sports teams, to ente ...

(coed) 3: Belvidere North (2016–17, 2017–18, 2018–19) * Cross Country (boys)-2: Belvidere North (2009–10, 10-11) * Cross Country (girls)-3: Guilford (1981–82) Belvidere North (2016–17, 2018–19) *

Field Hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ci ...

(girls)-1: Rockford West (1975–76) *

Football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

-7: Rockford East (1974–75, 85–86); Guilford (1982–83); Belvidere (1993–94, 1994–95); Boylan (2010–11, 2011–12) *

Golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

(boys)-12: Rockford East (1941–42, 42–43, 43–44, 44–45, 46–47, 56–57); Rockford West (1940–41); Guilford (1974–75, 75–76, 83–84, 85–86); Boylan (2002–03) * Golf (girls)-1: Guilford (1994–95) * Golf (girls -individual)-1: RPS205 Coop Team (2015–16) Madasyn Pettersen (Guilford) *

Journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (profes ...

-1: Jefferson (2006–07) * Scholastic Bowl-2: Auburn (2007–08, 2014–15) *

Soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

(boys)-1: Boylan (2010–11) *

Softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

-2: Harlem (1979–80, 98–99) * Swimming & Diving (boys)-1: Rockford High School (1932–33) *

Track & Field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

(boys)-5: Joliet Township (1915–16); Rockford High School (1926–27, 32–33, 34–35); Freeport (2016–17) *Debate (Public Policy)- 1: Belvidere North (2018–19)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Northern Illinois Conference (Athletic Division) Illinois high school sports conferences Education in Boone County, Illinois Education in Stephenson County, Illinois Education in Winnebago County, Illinois