The Southwest Suburban Conference is an athletic and competitive activity conference consisting of

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

secondary Secondary may refer to: Science and nature * Secondary emission, of particles ** Secondary electrons, electrons generated as ionization products * The secondary winding, or the electrical or electronic circuit connected to the secondary winding i ...

schools located in the south and southwest suburbs of

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

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 ...

. The conference was formed in 2005 when most of these schools split off from the

South Inter-Conference Association The South Inter-Conference Association is a former high school umbrella conference organizing extracurricular sporting activities in the southern portion of Cook, portions of Kendall and throughout Will and Kankakee Counties in Illinois. SICA ...

(SICA). The division resulted in a lawsuit claiming that schools that were majority white in population were abandoning the schools which were majority black. The lawsuit was eventually settled and paved the way for the conference to expand.

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 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, Orland ...

, 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 Thornton Township High School District 205 is a consolidated high school district based in South Holland, Illinois that serves much of Cook County's Thornton Township. The district is located south of the city of Chicago; the township's northern ...

joining the Southwest Suburban Conference, and the two schools of

Thornton Fractional Township High School District 215 Thornton Fractional Township High School District 215, more commonly known as T.F. District 215, is composed of two high schools and the supplementary Center for Academics and Technology. Because of their excessively long names, among administrat ...

joining the South Suburban Conference. The remaining six teams would be known as

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 ...

. Those schools included; Bloom, Crete-Monee, Kankakee, Rich Central, Rich East and Rich South. Starting in 2019–20,

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 in ...

Thornton Township High School Thornton Township High School, often simply referred to as Thornton is a public high school founded in 1899, located in Harvey, one of the South Suburbs of the city of Chicago, Illinois, USA. The school is one of three administered by Thornton T ...

, and

Thornwood High School Thornwood High School is a public high school located in South Holland, Illinois, United States. It was built as part of Thornton Township High School District 205. It opened in 1971 to accommodate overcrowding at other District 205 schools, Thorn ...

left the conference to join the

Member schools

Membership timeline

This timeline represents the current schools within the Southwest Suburban Conference that were a part of the SICA.. DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:1250 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:2 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Bradley (1972-2005) bar:2 color:AssocF from:2005 till:end text:Southwest Suburban (2005-Present) bar:8 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Homewood-Flossmoor (1972-2005) bar:8 color:AssocF from:2005 till:end text:Southwest Suburban (2005-Present) bar:12 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Lincoln-Way (1972-2005) bar:12 color:AssocF from:2005 till:end text:Southwest Suburban (2005-Present) bar:21 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Sandburg (1972-2005) bar:21 color:AssocF from:2005 till:end text:Southwest Suburban (2005-Present) bar:22 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Stagg (1972-2005) bar:22 color:AssocF from:2005 till:end text:Southwest Suburban (2005-Present) bar:23 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Thornridge (1972-2005) bar:23 color:AssocF from:2005 till:2019 text:Southwest Suburban (2005-2019) bar:23 color:OtherC2 from:2019 till:end text:Southland Athletic (2019-Present) bar:24 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Thornton (1972-2005) bar:24 color:AssocF from:2005 till:2019 text:Southwest Suburban (2005-2019) bar:24 color:OtherC2 from:2019 till:end text:Southland Athletic (2019-Present) bar:27 color:OtherC1 from:1972 till:2005 text:Thornwood (1972-2005) bar:27 color:AssocF from:2005 till:2019 text:Southwest Suburban (2005-2019) bar:27 color:OtherC2 from:2019 till:end text:Southland Athletic (2019-Present) bar:32 color:OtherC1 from:1977 till:2005 text:Andrew (1977-2005) bar:32 color:AssocF from:2005 till:end text:Southwest Suburban (2005-Present) bar:33 color:OtherC1 from:1982 till:2005 text:Bolingbrook (1982-2005) bar:33 color:AssocF from:2005 till:end text:Southwest Suburban (2005-Present) bar:34 color:OtherC1 from:1982 till:2005 text:Lockport (1982-2005) bar:34 color:AssocF from:2005 till:end text:Southwest Suburban (2005-Present) bar:36 color:OtherC1 from:1983 till:1993 text:Joliet Central (1983-1993) bar:36 color:white from:1993 till:2008 text:Consolidated with Joliet West to become Joliet Township High School bar:36 color:AssocF from:2008 till:2016 text:Southwest Suburban (2008-2016) bar:36 color:OtherC4 from:2016 till:end text:Southwest Prairie (2016-Present) bar:37 color:OtherC1 from:1983 till:1993 text:Joliet West (1983-1993) bar:37 color:white from:1993 till:2008 text:Consolidated with Joliet Central to become Joliet Township High School bar:37 color:AssocF from:2008 till:2016 text:Southwest Suburban (2008-2016) bar:37 color:OtherC4 from:2016 till:end text:Southwest Prairie (2016-Present) bar:38 color:OtherC1 from:1993 till:2005 text:Joliet Township (1993-2005) bar:38 color:AssocF from:2005 till:2008 text:Southwest Suburban (2005-2008) bar:38 color:white from:2012 till:end text:Schools reverted back to Central and West bar:39 color:OtherC1 from:2001 till:2005 text:Lincoln-Way East (2001-2005) bar:39 color:AssocF from:2005 till:end text: bar:39 color:AssocF from:2007 till:end text:Southwest Suburban (2005-Present) bar:40 color:AssocF from:2009 till:end text:Lincoln-Way West (2009-Present) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:1970 TextData = fontsize:L textcolor:black pos:(0,30) tabs:(400-center) text:^"Southwest Suburban 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. <#

Sports

The conference sponsors competition for young men and young women in

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 ...

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 ...

, cross country,

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 ...

gymnastics Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, shou ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 Summ ...

water polo Water polo is a competitive team sport played in water between two teams of seven players each. The game consists of four quarters in which the teams attempt to score goals by throwing the ball into the opposing team's goal. The team with the ...

. The conference also sponsors competition for young men in

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 tea ...

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 ...

, and

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 ...

; and for young women

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 pe ...

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 ...

, and

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 ...

Activities

The conference sponsors competition in

Individual Events Individual events in speech include public speaking, limited preparation, and acting and interpretation and are a part of forensics competitions. These events do not include the several different forms of debate offered by many tournaments. These ...

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 ...

, Drama and Group Interpretation.

State placers

Since 2005, the following teams and activities have finished in the top four of their respective IHSA sponsored state tournaments: * Badminton: ''4th place'' (Andrew: 2007–08, 08–09); ''3rd place'' (Andrew: 2005–06); ''2nd place'' (Andrew: 2006–07; Lincoln-Way Central: 2007–08, 08–09) * Basketball (boys): ''4th place'' (Thornwood: 2005–06); ''3rd place'' (Thornton: 2008–09) * Basketball (girls): ''2nd place'' (Bolingbrook: 2006–07, 07–08); ''State Champions'' (Bolingbrook: 2005–06, 08–09) * Bowling (boys): ''3rd place'' (Lincoln-Way East: 2006–07; Lincoln-Way Central: 2007–08, 2017–2018); ''State Champions'' (Andrew: 2005–06) * Cross Country (boys): ''4th place'' (Sandburg: 2006–07) * Cheerleading: ''3rd place'' (Bradley-Bourbonnais: 2006–07; Sandburg: 07–08); ''2nd place'' (Bradley-Bourbonnais: 2007–08, 08–09); ''State Champions'' (Sandburg: 2005–06, 08–09) *Drama: ''State Champions'' (Thornridge: 2005) ''2nd Place'' (Thornridge: 2006) ; (Homewood-Flossmoor:2012) ''Fourth Place'' (Homewood-Flossmoor: 2007,2010) * Football: ''State Champions'' (Lincoln-Way East: 2005, 2017, 2019); (Bolingbrook 2011) *Group Interpretation: ''State Champions'' (Homewood-Flossmoor:2007) ; (Thornwood: 2006, 2009) ''2nd Place'' (Homewood-Flossmoor: 2008,2010,2011) ; (Thornwood: 2007) ''3rd Place'' (Thornwood: 2005) ; (Thornton:2013) ; (Homewood-Flossmoor: 2012) ''4th Place'' (Thornwood:2010) ; (Homewood-Flossmoor: 2006) ; (Thornton:2011) * Golf (girls): ''2nd place'' (Homewood-Flossmoor: 2008–09) * Gymnastics (boys): "State Champions" (Lincoln-Way Co-Op: 2011); ''4th place'' (Lincoln-Way Co-Op: 2006–07); ''2nd place'' (Lincoln-Way Co-Op: 2007–08) * Gymnastics (girls): ''2nd place'' (Sandburg: 2008–09) * Soccer (girls): ''4th place'' (Lincoln-Way Central: 2006–07); ''3rd place'' (Sandburg: 2008–09) * Softball: ''State Champions''(Lincoln-Way Central: 2008) * Track & Field (girls): "State Champions" (Lincoln-Way East: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2021); ''3rd place'' (Thornton: 2006–07) * Volleyball (boys): "2nd Place" (Lincoln-Way North: 2013); ''4th place, 1st place'' (Lincoln-Way East: 2006–07, 2014) * Water Polo (boys): ''4th place'' (Sandburg: 2007–08); ''2nd place'' (Sandburg: 2008–09) * Wrestling: ''4th place'' (Lincoln-Way Central: 2012–2013);''3rd place'' (Lincoln-Way Central: 2007–08); ''State Champions'' (Sandburg 2005–06, 06–07)

Notes

References

External links

Southwest Suburban Conference - Official site
{{Illinois High School Association Illinois high school sports conferences High school sports conferences and leagues in the United States