The Big Eight Conference was an athletic conference of IHSAA Class AAA high schools located in

Southwestern Indiana Southwestern Indiana is an 11-county region of southern Indiana, United States located at the southernmost and westernmost part of the state. As of the 2010 census, the region's combined population is 474,251. Evansville, Indiana's third-largest ...

. The conference members were small city-based schools located in Daviess, Dubois,

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Knox Knox may refer to: Places United States * Fort Knox, a United States Army post in Kentucky ** United States Bullion Depository, a high security storage facility commonly called Fort Knox * Fort Knox (Maine), a fort located on the Penobscot River i ...

, Posey, and Warrick counties in Indiana and once included Wabash County in Illinois. The conference ceased operations with the 2019-20 Winter Season as the final spring season was canceled because of the 2020 Coronavirus Outbreak.

History

The Big Eight Conference was created in 1980 when seven members of the

Southern Indiana Athletic Conference The Southern Indiana Athletic Conference (SIAC) is a high school athletic conference based in Evansville, Indiana. Five of the conferences eight schools; Bosse, Central, Harrison, North, and Reitz; comprise the public Evansville Vanderburgh School ...

(Boonville, Jasper, Mount Vernon, Princeton, Tell City, Vincennes Lincoln, and Washington) left to form a new conference with a member of the

Pocket Athletic Conference The Pocket Athletic Conference (PAC) is a high school athletic conference in Southwestern Indiana with its headquarters at Forest Park. Most of the conference's 13 members are mainly Class 2A and 3A public high schools currently located in Davi ...

(Gibson Southern). Gibson Southern left in 1994 to rejoin the PAC. Tell City followed suit to rejoin the PAC in 2001 as well (they had both been in that conference before Tell City joining the SIAC in 1953 when it was a super conference), reducing membership to six schools. Mount Carmel joined in 2003 to increase the membership to seven. Mount Carmel, located in Illinois, was the only school from outside Indiana to compete in an Indiana athletic conference. There have been two different members of the conference that captured the 3A boys' basketball title in four successive years. Very rarely has this occurred in the history of the state finals. Washington captured the 2007–08, 2009–10, and 2010–11 titles, and Princeton captured the 2008-09 State Title. The conference's demise was set in motion by the

Illinois High School Association The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) is an association that regulates competition of interscholastic sports and some interscholastic activities at the high school level for the state of Illinois. It is a charter member of the National Fed ...

member schools initially voting in December 2018 to establish a district football format (but repealing it one year later), meaning Mount Carmel would not be able to schedule all of the other conference members in that sport. The conference responded by voting to remove the school in 2020, while the school voted to leave before the 2019–20 school year. This set off a chain reaction, as Jasper and Vincennes Lincoln were accepted to return to the SIAC for 2020, and a week later, the PAC voted to accept the remaining four schools, including two former members, Boonville and Mount Vernon, effectively ending the conference.

Member schools

Former members

State championships

Boonville Pioneers (1)

*2006 Softball (3A)

Jasper Wildcats (8)

*1949 Boys' Basketball *1996 Baseball *1997 Baseball *1998 Baseball (3A) *1999 Boys' Tennis *2000 Baseball (3A) *2001 Football (4A) *2006 Baseball (3A)

Mount Carmel Golden Aces (3)

*1927 Boys' Basketball (Illinois) *1981 Football (3A) (Illinois) *2010 Boys' Golf (1A) (Illinois)

Mount Vernon Wildcats (0)

Princeton Community Tigers (2)

* 2009 Boys' Basketball (3A) * 2015 Girls' Basketball (3A)

Vincennes Lincoln Alices (3)

*1923 Boys' Basketball *1981 Boys' Basketball *2002 Baseball (3A)

Washington Hatchets (9)

*1914 Boys' Track *1915 Boys' Track *1930 Boys' Basketball *1941 Boys' Basketball *1942 Boys' Basketball *2005 Boys' Basketball (3A) *2008 Boys' Basketball (3A) *2010 Boys' Basketball (3A) *2011 Boys' Basketball (3A)

Conference Championships

Sources:

Football

Boys Basketball

Girls Basketball

Note: Big Eight Conference championships were determined by a single round-robin among the active members. The Big Eight Conference did not break ties in the standings for championship purposes, instead co-championships were awarded.

Neighboring Conferences

* Blue Chip Conference * Patoka Lake Conference

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Big Eight Conference (Ihsaa) Illinois high school sports conferences Indiana high school athletic conferences Southwestern Indiana Education in Daviess County, Indiana Education in Dubois County, Indiana Education in Gibson County, Indiana Education in Knox County, Indiana Education in Posey County, Indiana Education in Wabash County, Illinois Education in Warrick County, Indiana