Northeast Eight Conference | |
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NE8/NEC | |
Established | 1989 As Northeast Hoosier Conference 2014 As Northeast Eight Conference |
Dissolved | 2013 (Northeast Hoosier Conference) |
Members | 8; 6 Class 4A, 2 Class 3A |
Region | 7 Counties: Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, Noble, Wells, and Whitley, Indiana |
Locations | |
An eight-member IHSAA-Sanctioned Athletic Conference within the Northeastern Indiana counties of Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, Noble, Wells, and Whitley. The conference was started in 1989 as the Northeast Hoosier Conference when six schools from the Northeastern Indiana Athletic Conference (Bellmont, Columbia City, DeKalb, East Noble, Homestead, and New Haven) joined with two schools from the Allen County Athletic Conference (Fort Wayne Carroll and Norwell). When the smaller six schools decided to pull out of the conference in 2015, the conference essentially ceased to exist, forcing the much larger Carroll and Homestead into joining the Summit Athletic Conference. The remaining schools, while settling on the current league name, added Huntington North of the North Central Conference and Leo of the Allen County Athletic Conference, who are more similar in size to the rest of the schools. While the six NEHC schools technically dropped out, they never actually left the league, having succeeded in forcing out the two large Fort Wayne schools, ended up staying in the league. This is not an unheard of tactic, as most notably Ohio's Chagrin Valley Conference pulled virtually the same move around the same time.