The Southern Athletic Conference is an IHSAA-sanctioned athletic located within Clark Harrison and Jackson Counties in South Central Indiana. The conference began in 1974 as a four school conference, and grew to eight members within five years as other local conferences disbanded. The conference has lost two schools in the years since, both left for the Mid-Southern Conference. The Southern also had schools that had dual membership in other conferences at the same time, though by 1986, all of these schools entered full membership with a sole conference.