Suburban Conference (Wisconsin)


The Suburban Conference is a former high school athletic conference in Wisconsin, operating from 1925 to 1985 with its membership concentrated in the suburbs of Milwaukee. Its member schools were aligned with the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association.

History

1925–1942

The Suburban Conference, originally known as the Milwaukee Suburban Interscholastic Athletic Association, was formed in 1925 by seven high schools located in the streetcar suburbs of Milwaukee: Cudahy, Milwaukee County Agricultural, Shorewood, South Milwaukee, Waukesha, Wauwatosa and West Allis. It was the second athletic conference to form in the Milwaukee area, preceded only by the Milwaukee City Conference in 1893. Milwaukee County School of Agriculture left the conference when it closed in 1928, and its place was taken by the newly opened high school in West Milwaukee in 1929. Whitefish Bay joined the conference in 1933, and their entry into the Suburban Conference brought the membership group to the maximum number of eight schools per the conference's original constitution.

1942–1980

The growth of the Suburban Conference coincided with population growth in the Milwaukee area. West Allis added a second high school in 1939 when Nathan Hale High School added senior high school grades, and they joined the conference in 1942. West Allis High School changed their name to West Allis Central in the process. Nathan Hale's entry brought the number of member schools in the conference to nine, breaking the 1925 constitutional limit on the number of members. An odd number of schools also created scheduling issues that led the conference to explore adding a tenth member in the early 1950s. After making unsuccessful overtures to Oconomowoc High School to leave the Little Ten Conference, the Suburban Conference extended an invite to the recently opened Greendale High School, and they joined in 1952. Port Washington and Watertown were also reported as candidates for expansion but instead formed half of the new Braveland Conference in 1953. Wauwatosa West High School joined the conference soon after it opened in 1961, with Wauwatosa High School becoming Wauwatosa East. They replaced Greendale, who left to join the Braveland Conference for two years before becoming a charter member of the Parkland Conference. A conference realignment plan that merged the Suburban and Braveland Conferences was also discussed that year but never implemented. 1974 brought an eleventh member to the conference in the form of the newly opened Waukesha North High School, and Waukesha High School changed its name to Waukesha South.

1980–1985

After years of discussion between the high school athletic conferences in southeastern Wisconsin, the WIAA stepped in with a sweeping realignment plan in 1980. Five new schools joined the Suburban: four of the smaller schools from the Milwaukee City Conference and Racine Horlick from the former South Shore Conference. Most sports competed as a single division of sixteen schools with the exception of football, which was partitioned into large-school and small-school divisions:
Large SchoolsSmall Schools
CudahyMilwaukee Juneau
Nathan HaleMilwaukee Riverside
Racine HorlickMilwaukee Rufus King
South MilwaukeeMilwaukee West Division
Waukesha NorthShorewood
Waukesha SouthWest Milwaukee
Wauwatosa East
Wauwatosa West
West Allis Central
Whitefish Bay

Wauwatosa West and Whitefish Bay were moved over to the small-school division for football in 1982, bringing each division to eight schools. In 1983, Racine Case joined from the Parkland Conference and Racine Park joined from the Milwaukee Area Conference, reuniting the three high schools of the Racine Unified School District. For the last two years of the Suburban Conference's existence, it was aligned into two divisions for most sports based on enrollment size: the Gold Division contained larger schools and the Blue Division contained the smaller ones:
Gold DivisionBlue Division
Milwaukee JuneauCudahy
Milwaukee Rufus KingMilwaukee Riverside
Racine CaseMilwaukee West Division
Racine HorlickNathan Hale
Racine ParkShorewood
Waukesha NorthSouth Milwaukee
Waukesha SouthWest Allis Central
Wauwatosa EastWest Milwaukee
Wauwatosa WestWhitefish Bay

Racine Case and Racine Park joined the large-schools division for football, and they would remain there for the final two seasons of conference play.

Epilogue

The Suburban Conference was realigned out of existence in 1985, with most of its members joining three newly formed conferences in southeastern Wisconsin. The two Waukesha high schools joined an overhauled Braveland Conference, the four Milwaukee high schools rejoined the City Conference, and West Milwaukee joined the Parkland Conference.

Membership timeline


DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:20
Period = from:1925 till:1985
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
PlotArea = right:180 left:0 bottom:50 top:5
Colors = id:barcolor value:rgb
id:line value:black
id:bg value:white
PlotData=
width:15 textcolor:black shift: anchor:from fontsize:m
bar:1 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1983 text:Cudahy
bar:1 color:blue from:1983 till:1985
bar:2 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1983 text:Shorewood
bar:2 color:blue from:1983 till:1985
bar:3 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1983 text:South Milwaukee
bar:3 color:blue from:1983 till:1985
bar:4 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1974 text:Waukesha
bar:4 color:tan1 from:1974 till:1983 text:Waukesha South
bar:4 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985
bar:5 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1961 text:Wauwatosa
bar:5 color:tan1 from:1961 till:1983 text:Wauwatosa East
bar:5 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985
bar:6 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1928 text:Wauwatosa Aggies
bar:7 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1942 text:West Allis
bar:7 color:tan1 from:1942 till:1983 text:West Allis Central
bar:7 color:blue from:1983 till:1985
bar:8 color:tan1 from:1929 till:1983 text:West Milwaukee
bar:8 color:blue from:1983 till:1985
bar:9 color:tan1 from:1933 till:1983 text:Whitefish Bay
bar:9 color:blue from:1983 till:1985
bar:10 color:tan1 from:1942 till:1983 text:Nathan Hale
bar:10 color:blue from:1983 till:1985
bar:11 color:tan1 from:1952 till:1961 text:Greendale
bar:12 color:tan1 from:1961 till:1983 text:Wauwatosa West
bar:12 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985
bar:13 color:tan1 from:1974 till:1983 text:Waukesha North
bar:13 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985
bar:14 color:tan1 from:1980 till:1985 text:Milwaukee Juneau
bar:14 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985
bar:15 color:tan1 from:1980 till:1985 text:Milwaukee Riverside
bar:15 color:blue from:1983 till:1985
bar:16 color:tan1 from:1980 till:1985 text:Milwaukee Rufus King
bar:16 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985
bar:17 color:tan1 from:1980 till:1985 text:Milwaukee West Division
bar:17 color:blue from:1983 till:1985
bar:18 color:tan1 from:1980 till:1983 text:Racine Horlick
bar:18 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985
bar:19 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985 text:Racine Case
bar:20 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985 text:Racine Park

ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:1925

List of state champions

Fall sports

SchoolYearDivision
West Allis Central1977Single Division

SchoolYearDivision
Whitefish Bay1971Single Division
Wauwatosa West1972Single Division
Wauwatosa West1973Single Division
Whitefish Bay1974Single Division
Whitefish Bay1979Single Division

SchoolYearDivision
Wauwatosa East1974Class A
Wauwatosa East1975Class A
Nathan Hale1976Class A
Nathan Hale1979Class A
Wauwatosa East1980Class A
West Milwaukee1980Class B
Wauwatosa East1985Class A

Winter sports

SchoolYearDivision
Wauwatosa East1981Class A

SchoolYearDivision
West Milwaukee1948Single Division
Waukesha South1980Class A

Spring sports

SchoolYearDivision
Whitefish Bay1983Single Division
Whitefish Bay1984Single Division
Whitefish Bay1985Single Division

SchoolYearDivision
South Milwaukee1935Class B
Whitefish Bay1937Class B
Whitefish Bay1938Class B
Whitefish Bay1939Class B
Whitefish Bay1940Class B
Whitefish Bay1941Class B
Whitefish Bay1942Class B
Wauwatosa1943Class A
Whitefish Bay1943Class B
Whitefish Bay1944Class B
Whitefish Bay1945Class B
Whitefish Bay1946Class B
Whitefish Bay1947Class B
Whitefish Bay1948Class B
Whitefish Bay1949Class B
Whitefish Bay1950Class B
Whitefish Bay1951Class B
Whitefish Bay1952Class B
West Milwaukee1955Class B
Greendale1956Class B
Waukesha1959Class A
Whitefish Bay1962Class A
Whitefish Bay1970Class A
Wauwatosa East1972Class A