Northern Illinois Conference (athletic division)
| Northern Illinois Conference | |
|---|---|
| Association | IHSA |
| Members | 10 |
| Region | Illinois (Boone, Stephenson, and Winnebago counties) |
The Northern Illinois Conference (NIC-10) is a high school athletic conference consisting of nine high public schools and one Catholic school in Illinois' Boone, Stephenson, and Winnebago Counties. Member schools are also full members of the Illinois High School Association (IHSA), and are among the larger schools in that area, all competing in Class AA (in the two class system) of IHSA competitions.
The Northern Illinois High School Conference (NIHSC) was founded in 1916 as a high school football conference. Boys track and basketball soon followed, and other sports were added over time. Original members included Freeport High School, Rockford High School, Joliet High School, Elgin High School, DeKalb High School, Aurora East High School, and Aurora West High School. DeKalb withdrew after one season, and for two years the league operated with six schools. The flu pandemic of 1918, which hit the Rockford area particularly hard, caused the cancellation of that year’s football season, and when league play returned in 1919, DeKalb rejoined. At this time, newspapers began referring to the league as the Big 7 for brevity.
In 1929, DeKalb again left the conference with six teams, and the league was known as the Big 6 until LaSalle-Peru High School joined in 1936. In the spring of 1940, Rockford High School was replaced by Rockford West and Rockford East, and the conference naturally became the Big 8.
1940 to 1960 was a period of stability, as the league operated with the same eight members spread over five far-flung counties. However, the high school building boom that began throughout northern Illinois in the late 1950s led to a series of conference realignments that brought rapid changes and a geographic shift to the Big 8. The first in this series of moves was Joliet’s departure for the South Suburban Conference in 1960. The Steelmen were replaced by the newly opened Rockford Auburn High School that same year. In 1963, NIHSC charter members East Aurora, West Aurora, and Elgin departed to help form the new Upstate 8 Conference, and Harlem High School, Belvidere High School, and the newly opened Rockford Guilford High School immediately stepped in to take their place. With the other seven league members now concentrated in the farthest reaches of northern Illinois, LaSalle-Peru withdrew in 1964 to join the North Central Illinois Conference, which was closer to home. Boylan Central Catholic High School, the league’s only private school, replaced the Cavaliers that same year.
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