Tomahawk Conference, Ohio, 1958-1960

The Tomahawk Conference was a short-lived athletic confederation which existed in Portage County, Ohio, between 1958 and 1961. Member teams included Windham, Southeast, Crestwood, and Ravenna. It remains the smallest athletic conference in the history of Ohio sports.

Information on the conference has been compiled from primary sources, the Akron Beacon Journal, and the Ravenna Evening Record (later the Ravenna-Kent Record-Courier), two Ohio newspapers both available on microfilm at the Kent State University library.

The genesis of the Tomahawk Conference occurred in the early to mid-1950s. First, Windham became an exempted village school in 1953, and because they were no longer under the control of the County Board of Education, were expelled from the Portage County League. Slightly later, three former Portage County League schools, Shalersville, Mantua Township and Mantua Village, consolidated to become Crestwood. Four schools that had fielded PCL athletic squads in the past, Charlestown, Deerfield, Edinburgh, and Palmyra, combined to form the Southeast School District. These consolidated schools had substantially more students than the other PCL schools, and although still in the league, were considered too large and strong for the smaller schools, Randolph, Suffield, Garrettsville, Rootstown, Ravenna Township, Atwater, Aurora, and Hiram. The Portage County League was composed entirely of Class A schools, and Southeast and Crestwood had outgrown that classification.

The precipitating event seems to have occurred in September 1957 and involved Windham. Windham had an exceptional football team under Leo Kot (they would go on to be 6-0-1 on the season). At the time, Windham was a four-year high school that operated on the three-year plan; in other words, in order to be classified as Class A, or small division, they had to play only sophomores through seniors, and they were allowed only 115 boys in those three grades. The reporting date for school enrollment was October 1.

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