The Allen County Athletic Conference (ACAC) is a seven-member

Indiana High School Athletic Association The Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) is the arbiter of interscholastic competition among public and private high schools in the U.S. state of Indiana. Member schools are classified into four classes based on enrollment, ranging ...

(IHSAA)

conference A conference is a meeting, often lasting a few days, which is organized on a particular subject, or to bring together people who have a common interest. Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always d ...

. While all of its charter schools are and were located in Allen County, it also has member schools from

Adams Adams may refer to: * For persons, see Adams (surname) Places United States *Adams, California *Adams, California, former name of Corte Madera, California * Adams, Decatur County, Indiana *Adams, Kentucky *Adams, Massachusetts, a New England to ...

Jay Jays are a paraphyletic grouping of passerine birds within the family Corvidae. Although the term "jay" carries no taxonomic weight, most or all of the birds referred to as jays share a few similarities: they are small to medium-sized, usually ...

, and Wells counties. The ACAC, along with the Porter County Conference, are the only two county conferences left in existence.

History

The Allen County Athletic Conference began with nine schools in Allen County in 1956. The schools were smaller, rural schools, with the exception of Elmhurst, the sole

Fort Wayne Fort Wayne is a city in Allen County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 at the 2020 United S ...

school that wasn't included in the Fort Wayne City Series. The conference was hit hard by consolidation, and the nine original schools were down to four by the 1968 season (and two of those were new consolidations). The conference responded by going outside county borders by admitting Norwell (itself a newly consolidated school) in 1967, followed by Adams Central, Churubusco, and Eastside in 1968. The rebooted conference now expanded well outside of the Allen County footprint, including schools from

, DeKalb, Wells, and Whitley counties. All of the schools now sponsored football, and competition in that sport began in 1969. The conference went to a two division format in 1971 with the addition of new school

Homestead Homestead may refer to: *Homestead (building), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses * Nguni homestead, a cluster of houses inhabited by a single extended family, typically with a kraal ...

and Southern Wells. That format ended in 1975, as Homestead left for the Northeastern Indiana Athletic Conference, followed by Eastside leaving for the Northeast Corner Conference in 1980. The breakup of the NEIAC in 1989 led to a wide-scale realignment of conferences in Northeast Indiana, as schools looked to realign themselves with rivals of similar enrolments. The ACAC became the home for mid-sized schools, while the Northeast Corner housed small schools, and the newly formed Northeast Hoosier Conference became the stable for the largest non-Fort Wayne schools. Carroll and Norwell left that year for the NEHC, while Churubusco left for the NECC. They were replaced by NEIAC schools Bluffton and South Adams. Garrett, becoming too large for the Northeast Corner, moved to the Allen County league in 2005. Jay County joined the conference beginning with the 2014–15 school year. However, the conference shrank down to seven schools in 2015, as Garrett moved to the Northeast Corner Conference in 2014, and Leo joined six of the eight Northeast Hoosier Conference high schools in a new conference (Northeast 8) in 2015.

Membership

Current members

# Adams Central played in the ACAC and the EWVC concurrently for 1965–66, the final year for the EWVC. # Woodlan was known as Woodburn before 1959.

Former members

# Lafayette Central became part of Roanoke High School in 1963. Roanoke itself consolidated into Huntington North in 1966, taking Lafayette Township with it. The township then split off from HNHS to become part of Southwest Allen County Schools in 1971.

Membership timeline

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:750 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1956 till:2020 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:30 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 Colors = id:barcolor value:rgb(0.99,0.7,0.7) id:line value:black id:bg value:white PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:1 color:red from:1956 till:1968 text: Arcola (1956-1968) bar:2 color:red from:1956 till:1960 text:

Elmhurst Elmhurst may refer to: Places Australia *Elmhurst, Victoria United Kingdom * Elmhurst, Aylesbury * Elmhurst, Staffordshire United States *Elmhurst, Sacramento, California *Elmhurst, Oakland, California * Elmhurst, Delaware *Elmhurst, Illinois * El ...

(1956-1960) bar:3 color:red from:1956 till:1965 text:

Harlan Harlan is a given name and a surname which may refer to: Surname * Abram D. Harlan (1833–1908), American politician from Pennsylvania * Bob Harlan (born 1936 Robert E. Harlan), American football executive * Bruce Harlan (1926–1959), America ...

(1956-1965) bar:4 color:red from:1956 till:1968 text: Hoagland (1956-1968) bar:5 color:red from:1956 till:1968 text: Huntertown (1956-1968) bar:6 color:red from:1956 till:1963 text: Lafayette Central (1956-1963) bar:7 color:red from:1956 till:2015 text:

Leo Leo is the Latin word for lion. It most often refers to: * Leo (constellation), a constellation of stars in the night sky * Leo (astrology), an astrological sign of the zodiac * Leo (given name), a given name in several languages, usually mas ...

(1956-2015) bar:8 color:red from:1956 till:1968 text: Monroeville (1956-1968) bar:9 color:red from:1956 till:end text: Woodburn (1956-1959)/ Woodlan (1959-present) bar:10 color:red from:1965 till:end text: Adams Central (1965-present) bar:11 color:red from:1966 till:1967 text:

Ossian Ossian (; Irish Gaelic/Scottish Gaelic: ''Oisean'') is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson, originally as ''Fingal'' (1761) and ''Temora (poem), Temora'' (1763), and later c ...

(1966-1967) bar:12 color:red from:1967 till:1989 text: Norwell (1967-1989) bar:13 color:red from:1968 till:1989 text: Carroll (Fort Wayne) (1968-1989) bar:14 color:red from:1968 till:1989 text:

Churubusco Churubusco is a neighbourhood of Mexico City. Under the current territorial division of the Mexican Federal District, it is a part of the borough () of Coyoacán. It is centred on the former Franciscan monastery ''(ex convento de Churubusco)'' a ...

(1968-1989) bar:15 color:red from:1968 till:1980 text: Eastside (1968-1980) bar:16 color:red from:1968 till:end text:

Heritage Heritage may refer to: History and society * A heritage asset A heritage asset is an item which has value because of its contribution to a nation's society, knowledge and/or culture. Such items are usually physical assets, but some countries also ...

(1968-present) bar:17 color:red from:1971 till:1975 text:

(1971-1975) bar:18 color:red from:1971 till:end text: Southern Wells (1971-present) bar:19 color:red from:1989 till:end text: Bluffton (1989-present) bar:20 color:red from:1989 till:end text: South Adams (1989-present) bar:21 color:red from:2005 till:2014 text:

Garrett Garrett may refer to: Places in the United States * Garrett, Illinois, a village * Garrett, Indiana, a city * Garrett, Floyd County, Kentucky, an unincorporated community * Garrett, Meade County, Kentucky, an unincorporated community * Garrett, ...

(2005-2014) bar:22 color:red from:2014 shift:(-100,-3) till:end text: Jay County (2014-present) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:1956 TextData = fontsize:L textcolor:black pos:(175,30) # tabs:(0-center) text:"ACAC Membership History"

Division Format 1971-75

Conference championships

Football

* 1971-74: N = North Division champions, S = South Division champions, C = title game champions (not held in 1973).

Boys basketball

* Champions from 1958–59 to 1990-91 not listed are unverified.

Girls basketball

* Champions from beginning of competition (ca. 1974–75) until 2000 not listed are unverified.

Wrestling

Only tournament champions listed.

State titles

Adams Central Flying Jets (2)

*2000 Football (A) *2024 Football (2A)

Bluffton Tigers (5)

* D'Wayne Eskridge - 200 M Dash (2015, 2016), 100 M Dash (2016) * Randy Pursley - 130 lbs Wrestling (1999) * Ben Sprunger - 130 lbs Wrestling (2000)

Garrett Railroaders (1)

*1974 Football (A)

Heritage Patriots (1)

* 1982 girls basketball

Leo Lions (1)

* 2014 Girls Softball (3A) * 2008 Justin Woods, Leo 33-0 215lb State Wrestling Champion

South Adams Starfires (1)

• Davona Runkel - Girls shot put (1986)

Southern Wells Raiders (1)

*2001 Football (A)

Woodlan Warriors (0)

External links

IHSAA Conferences

IHSAA Directory

IHSAA Classification

IHSAA Football Classification

References

{{Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) Indiana high school athletic conferences Education in Adams County, Indiana Education in Allen County, Indiana Education in DeKalb County, Indiana Education in Wells County, Indiana Articles which contain graphical timelines 1956 establishments in Indiana