The South Suburban Conference (SSC) is a

high 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 '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

athletic and activity

conference A conference is a meeting of two or more experts to discuss and exchange opinions or new information about a particular topic. Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always decisions, are the main p ...

which comprises fourteen schools located in the south and southwest suburbs of

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. The conference was one of three (the Southwest Suburban Conference (SWSC) and

Southland Athletic Conference The Southland Athletic Conference (SAC) is a high school athletic and activity conference which comprises nine schools located in the south and southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. The conference was one of three (the Southwest Suburban C ...

) to be carved from the long extant South Inter-Conference Association (SICA); a large athletic conference which broke apart in 2005 after 33 years of existence.

History

The ''"original"'' incarnation of the South Suburban Conference dates back to 1927 when a group of six schools maintained ties from the original Suburban Conference which had folded that same year. Those original members included Bloom,

Blue Island Blue Island is a city in Cook County, Illinois, located approximately south of Chicago's Loop. Blue Island is adjacent to the city of Chicago and shares its northern boundary with that city's Morgan Park neighborhood. The population was 22,558 ...

Chicago University The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the be ...

, Kankakee, Thornton Fractional and Thornton. The league continued to add schools as time moved forward with Argo joining in 1938 and Lockport in 1939. University High School left in 1939, leaving a league that maintained seven schools for 14 years. The south suburbs continued to grow in popularity with school districts becoming larger and populations increasing. So, in 1952, Leyden High School joined the conference making the total number of schools eight. However, in 1957, Thornton Fractional would split into North and South and Leyden would also be split into

East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

and

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

and all four schools would leave the conference. This exodus would drop the conference total to six schools. In 1960, Joliet joined from the Big 8 and newly opened

Thornridge High School Thornridge High School is a public four-year high school located in Dolton, Illinois, a suburb about 20 miles south of Chicago. The school is part of Thornton Township High School District 205. Thornridge High School first opened to the public i ...

was added to the league as well. 1962 witnessed the name change of Blue Island High School to Dwight D. Eisenhower High School. In 1964, Joliet split into three separate schools; Central,

and

making this version of the conference the biggest it would ever become, 10 schools. Another mass exodus would occur in 1966 as Argo, Kankakee, Lockport and all three Joliet schools left in order to join the newly chartered

Illini 8 Conference Illini may refer to: * ''Illini'' and ''Saluki'', a pair of passenger trains operated by Amtrak between Chicago and Carbondale, Illinois * Illini State Park, an Illinois state park on 510 acres (206 ha) in LaSalle County, Illinois, United States * ...

. The reduction of schools forced the league to reach out for additional members, however, Richards, a brand new high school, was the only team to join. The last team to join this original version of the South Suburban was Thornwood in 1972, the same year the school opened. Unfortunately, this would be the final year for this version of the South Suburban with several teams joining the newly formed South Inter-Conference Association (SICA). Those schools included Argo, Bloom, Eisenhower, Joliet Central, Joliet West, Kankakee, Lockport, Richards, Thornridge, Thornton, Thornton Fractional North and South and Thornwood. For 33 years prior to 2006, most of the public high schools in the south and southwest suburban Chicago area were a part of the ''South Inter-Conference Association'' (SICA) which by 2005 had reached a membership of 33 schools split into five divisions. The conference covered a large geographic area and sociological spectrum "from the Indiana border to Joliet, from impoverished Ford Heights to affluent Frankfort, from virtually all-black Hillcrest to almost all-white Lincoln-Way Central and from Joliet, enrollment 4,993, to 1,066- student Rich South" In 2004, the athletic directors voted 30–3, the principals' board of control voted 6–2, and the district superintendents voted 16–3 to approve a new conference realignment which was to take effect in 2006. The realignment had been pushed because of long travel times and a reduction of sports offerings at some schools. The realignment split the association into three roughly equal and geographically contiguous conferences, one of which, the southeast, contained most of the predominantly African–American schools (compared to one school in the remaining two conferences). It was from these schools that a majority of the votes against the realignment had come. Leaders from these schools demanded an investigation from the Office of the Illinois Attorney General, and petitioned the Illinois State Board of Education to investigate as to whether this action violated rules on equity. In March 2005, ten schools announced that they were unilaterally leaving SICA to form a new conference, the Southwest Suburban Conference. Those schools included; Andrew, Bolingbrook, Bradley, Homewood-Flossmoor, Joliet Township, Lincoln-Way Central, Lincoln-Way East, Lockport, Sandburg and Stagg. These ten schools collectively were among the largest in student population. Shortly after the announcement, a board member from

Lincoln-Way Community High School District Lincoln-Way Community High School District 210 is a school district in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Created in 1951, the district serves the communities of New Lenox, Frankfort, Mokena, Manhattan, and small portions of Tinley Park, Orla ...

, a district representing two of the schools leaving to form a new conference, was forced to resign after racially insensitive statements were left on a reporter's voice mail. Shortly after this, twelve more schools split off to form the South Suburban Conference. Those schools included; Argo, Bremen, Eisenhower, Evergreen Park, Hillcrest, Lemont, Oak Forest, Oak Lawn, Reavis, Richards, Shepard, and Tinley Park,. In April 2006, a federal civil rights lawsuit was filed against the schools which had left claiming that "(an) apartheid-like realignment used public funds to regress to separate but equal". The suit was settled out of court with the three schools of Thornton Township High Schools District 205 joining the Southwest Suburban Conference, and the two schools of Thornton Fractional Township High School District 215 joining the South Suburban Conference. The remaining six teams would be known as Southland Athletic Conference. Those schools included; Bloom, Crete-Monee, Kankakee, Rich Central, Rich East and Rich South.

Members

There are 14 members of the conference.

Sports and activities

The conference sponsors competition in the following sports: *

Badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players p ...

(girls) *

Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

(boys) *

Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

(boys & girls) *

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), thou ...

(boys & girls) *

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 ...

(girls) * Cross Country (boys & girls) * Competitive Dance (boys & girls) * Football (boys) *

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 ...

(boys & girls) *

Lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensiv ...

(boys) * Soccer (boys & girls) *

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 ...

(girls) *

Swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

Diving Diving most often refers to: * Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water * Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes Diving or Dive may also refer to: Sports * Dive (American football), a ...

(boys & girls) *

Tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

(boys & girls) *

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 eve ...

(boys & girls) *

Volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

(boys & girls) *

Wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

(boys)

Membership timeline

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:1250 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1925 till:2023 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 was a member of the original conference id:AssocF value:rgb(0.98,0.5,0.445) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member with 8-man football id:AssocOS value:rgb(0.78,0.391,0.654) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in a football coop 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 id:OtherC3 value:rgb(0.5,0.691,0.824) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference id:OtherC4 value:rgb(0.777,0.291,0.298) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference id:OtherC5 value:rgb(0.8,0.996,0.699) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference id:OtherC6 value:rgb(0.7,0.5,0.3) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:1 color:FullxF from:1927 till:1972 text:Bloom (1927-1972) bar:1 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:(SICA) (1972-2005) bar:1 color:OtherC2 from:2005 till:end text:(Southland Athletic) (2005-Present) bar:2 color:FullxF from:1927 till:1962 text:Blue Island (1927-1972) bar:2 color:FullxF from:1945 till:1972 text:(Name changed to Dwight D. Eisenhower High School 1962) bar:2 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:(SICA) (1972-2005) bar:2 color:Full from:2005 till:end text:(2005-Present) bar:3 color:FullxF from:1927 till:1966 text:Kankakee (1927-1966) bar:3 color:OtherC3 from:1966 till:1972 text:(Illini 8) (66-72) bar:3 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:(SICA) (1972-2005) bar:3 color:OtherC2 from:2005 till:end text:(Southland Athletic) (2005-Present) bar:4 color:FullxF from:1927 till:1957 text:Thornton Fractional (1927-1957) bar:4 color:white from:1957 till:end text:(School Split into North and South) bar:5 color:FullxF from:1927 till:1972 text:Thornton (1927-1972) bar:5 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:(SICA) (1972-2005) bar:5 color:OtherC2 from:2005 till:end text:(Southland Athletic) (2005-Present) bar:6 color:FullxF from:1927 till:1939 text:University (1927-1939) bar:7 color:FullxF from:1938 till:1966 text:Argo (1938-1966) bar:7 color:OtherC3 from:1966 till:1977 text:(Illini 8) (66-77) bar:7 color:OtherC1 from:1977 till:2005 text:(SICA) (1977-2005) bar:7 color:Full from:2005 till:end text:(2005-Present) bar:8 color:FullxF from:1939 till:1966 text:Lockport (1939-1966) bar:8 color:OtherC3 from:1966 till:1982 text:(Illini 8) (66-82) bar:8 color:OtherC1 from:1982 till:2005 text:(SICA) (1982-2005) bar:8 color:AssocF from:2005 till:end text:(Southwest Suburban) (2005-Present) bar:9 color:FullxF from:1952 till:1957 text:Leyden (1952-1957) bar:9 color:white from:1960 till:end text:(School Split into East and West) bar:10 color:AssocOS from:1957 till:1972 text:Fractional North (1957-1972) bar:10 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:(SICA) (1972-2005) bar:10 color:Full from:2005 till:end text:(2005-Present) bar:11 color:AssocOS from:1957 till:1972 text:Fractional South (1957-1972) bar:11 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:(SICA) (1972-2005) bar:11 color:Full from:2005 till:end text:(2005-Present) bar:12 color:FullxF from:1960 till:1964 text:Joliet (1960-1964) bar:12 color:white from:1967 till:end text:(School Split into Central, East and West) bar:13 color:FullxF from:1960 till:1972 text:Thornridge (1960-1972) bar:13 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:(SICA) (1972-2005) bar:13 color:OtherC2 from:2005 till:end text:(Southland Athletic) (2005-Present) bar:14 color:FullxF from:1966 till:1972 text:Richards (1966-1972) bar:14 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text: bar:14 color:OtherC1 from:1974 till:2005 text:(SICA) (1972-2005) bar:14 color:Full from:2005 till:end text:(2005-Present) bar:15 color:OtherC4 from:1966 till:1991 text:Lemont (Northeast) (1983-1991) bar:15 color:OtherC6 from:1991 till:1995 text:(1991-1995) bar:15 color:OtherC5 from:1995 till:2005 text: bar:15 color:OtherC5 from:1996 till:2005 text:(1995-2005) bar:15 color:Full from:2005 till:end text:(2005-Present) bar:16 color:FullxF from:1971 till:1972 text:Thornwood (1971-1972) bar:16 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text: bar:16 color:OtherC1 from:1980 till:2005 text:(SICA) (1972-2005) bar:16 color:OtherC2 from:2005 till:end text:Southland Athletic (2005-Present) bar:17 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Bremen (SICA) (1972-2005) bar:17 color:Full from:2005 till:end text:(2005-Present) bar:18 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:1983 text:Evergreen Park (1972-1983) bar:18 color:OtherC4 from:1983 till:1991 text:(Northeast)(1983-91) bar:18 color:OtherC6 from:1991 till:1995 text:(1991-1995) bar:18 color:OtherC5 from:1995 till:2005 text: bar:18 color:OtherC5 from:1996 till:2005 text:(1995-2005) bar:18 color:Full from:2005 till:end text:(2005-Present) bar:19 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Hillcrest (SICA) (1972-2005) bar:19 color:Full from:2005 till:end text:(2005-Present) bar:20 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Oak Lawn (SICA) (1972-2005) bar:20 color:Full from:2005 till:end text:(2005-Present) bar:21 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Oak Forest (SICA) (1972-2005) bar:21 color:Full from:2005 till:end text:(2005-Present) bar:22 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Reavis (SICA) (1972-2005) bar:22 color:Full from:2005 till:end text:(2005-Present) bar:23 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Tinley Park (SICA) (1972-2005) bar:23 color:Full from:2005 till:end text:(2005-Present) bar:24 color:OtherC1 from:1976 till:2005 text:Shepard (SICA) (1976-2005) bar:24 color:Full from:2005 till:end text:(2005-Present) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:1925 TextData = fontsize:L textcolor:black pos:(0,30) tabs:(400-center) text:^"South Suburban 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. <#

References

External links

Official website
{{Illinois High School Association High school sports conferences and leagues in the United States Illinois high school sports conferences High school sports in Illinois