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 Conference (SWSC) and South Suburban Conference (SSC) 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

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, 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.

In 2019-20, Thornridge, Thornton, and Thornwood left the Southwest Suburban Conference to join the Southland Conference. In 2020, Rich East High School closes while Rich South and Rich Central consolidate into Rich Township High School

Members

Membership timeline

This timeline represents the current schools within the Southland Athletic Conference that were a part of the SICA.

DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:1100 height:auto barincrement:20
Period = from:1970 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(0.6,0.791,0.625) # 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

PlotData=
width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s

bar:1 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Bloom (1972-2005)
bar:1 color:OtherC2 from:2005 till:end text:Southland Athletic (2005-Present)

bar:2 color:OtherC1 from:1976 till:1995 text:Bloom Trail (1976-1995)
bar:2 color:white from:1995 till:end text:All athletics joined with Bloom High School (1995)

bar:3 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Crete-Monee (1972-2005)
bar:3 color:OtherC2 from:2005 till:end text:Southland Athletic (2005-Present)

bar:4 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:1983 text:Kankakee Eastridge (1972-1983)
bar:4 color:white from:1983 till:end text:Conolidated with Kankakee Westview to form Kankakee High School

bar:5 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:1983 text:Kankakee Westview (1972-1983)
bar:5 color:white from:1983 till:end text:Conolidated with Kankakee Eastridge to form Kankakee High School

bar:6 color:OtherC1 From:1983 till:2005 text:Kankakee (1983-2005)
bar:6 color:OtherC2 from:2005 till:end text:Southland Athletic (2005-Present)

bar:7 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Rich East (1972-2005)
bar:7 color:Full from:2005 till:2020 text:South Suburban (2005-2020)
bar:7 color:white from:2020 till:end text:(School Closed)

bar:8 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Rich Central (1972-2005)
bar:8 color:Full from:2005 till:2020 text:South Suburban (2005-2020)
bar:8 color:white from:2020 till:end text:(Consolidated into Rich Township)

bar:9 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Rich South (1972-2005)
bar:9 color:OtherC2 from:2005 till:2020 text:Southland Athletic (2005-2020)
bar:9 color:white from:2020 till:end text:(Consolidated into Rich Township)

bar:10 color:white from:2016 till:end text:Rich Township
bar:10 color:OtherC2 from:2020 till:end text:(2020-Present)

bar:11 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Thornridge (1972-2005)
bar:11 color:AssocF from:2005 till:2019 text:Southwest Suburban (2005-2019)
bar:11 color:OtherC2 from:2019 till:end text:Southland Athletic (2019-Present)

bar:12 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Thornton (1972-2005)
bar:12 color:AssocF from:2005 till:2019 text:Southwest Suburban (2005-2019)
bar:12 color:OtherC2 from:2019 till:end text:Southland Athletic (2019-Present)

bar:13 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Thornwood (1972-2005)
bar:13 color:AssocF from:2005 till:2019 text:Southwest Suburban (2005-2019)
bar:13 color:OtherC2 from:2019 till:end text:Southland Athletic (2019-Present)

ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:1970
TextData =

fontsize:L

textcolor:black

pos:(0,30) tabs:(400-center)

text:^"Southland Athletic Conference 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. <#

Notes

#''Bloom Township High School'' is a unified team of Bloom High School in Chicago Heights, Illinois and Bloom Trail High School in Steger, Illinois.
#''Rich Township High School'' is a unified team that combines the schools of RTHS Fine Arts & Communications Campus (previously known as Rich South) in Richton Park, Illinois and RTHS STEM Campus (previously known as Rich Central) in Olympia Fields, Illinois.

References

{{Illinois High School Association

High school sports conferences and leagues in the United States
Illinois high school sports conferences
High school sports in Illinois