The Big Nine Conference is a former high school athletic conference in

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

, operating from 1985 to 1993 and consisting of nine large high schools in southeastern Wisconsin.

History

The Big Nine Conference was formed in the aftermath of extensive athletic conference realignment in southeastern Wisconsin following the 1984-85 school year. It was one of three new conferences created that year, along with the North Shore and Suburban Park conferences. This alignment placed the

Racine Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ; ; 22 December 1639 – 21 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille, as well as an important literary figure in the Western tra ...

and

Kenosha Kenosha () is a city in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It is the fourth-most populous city in Wisconsin, with a population of 99,986 at the 2020 census. Situated on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, Ke ...

high schools back together in a similar alignment to the old South Shore Conference, but with the addition of four high schools on the south side of

Milwaukee Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

. The Milwaukee schools were not in favor of this alignment, going to the length of filing a lawsuit against the WIAA to rejoin the Milwaukee City Conference. This finally happened in 1993, and the Big Nine Conference was disbanded along with the Braveland and Suburban Park Conferences. The five high schools in Racine and Kenosha went on to form part of the new fifteen-member Southeast Conference.

Conference membership history

Membership timeline

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1985 till:1993 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:m bar:1 color:tan1 from:1985 till:1993 text:Kenosha Bradford (1985-1993) bar:2 color:tan1 from:1985 till:1993 text:Kenosha Tremper (1985-1993) bar:3 color:tan1 from:1985 till:1993 text:Milwaukee Bay View (1985-1993) bar:4 color:tan1 from:1985 till:1993 text:Milwaukee Hamilton (1985-1993) bar:5 color:tan1 from:1985 till:1993 text:Milwaukee Pulaski (1985-1993) bar:6 color:tan1 from:1985 till:1993 text:Milwaukee South Division (1985-1993) bar:7 color:tan1 from:1985 till:1993 text:Racine Case (1985-1993) bar:8 color:tan1 from:1985 till:1993 text:Racine Horlick (1985-1993) bar:9 color:tan1 from:1985 till:1993 text:Racine Park (1985-1993) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:2 start:1985

List of state champions

Fall sports

Winter sports

None

Spring sports

List of conference champions

Boys Basketball

Girls Basketball

Football

References

{{Wisconsin high school athletic conferences Wisconsin high school sports conferences Sports organizations established in 1985 1985 establishments in Wisconsin 1993 disestablishments in Wisconsin