The Great Lakes Conference was an

OHSAA The Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) is the governing body of athletic programs for junior and senior high schools in the state of Ohio. The OHSAA governs eligibility of student athletes, resolves disputes, organizes levels of comp ...

athletics conference that began play with the 2015-16 school year. It disbanded following the 2023-24 school year.

Members

League history

As part of a significant realignment in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

-area high school leagues at the time, the Great Lakes Conference was formed in 2015 by seven schools that were located in Cleveland's west suburbs and had similar competition levels. Normandy, Parma, and Valley Forge came from the former Northeast Ohio Conference, Bay, Elyria Catholic, and Rocky River came from the former West Shore Conference, and Holy Name came from the

North Coast League This is a list of former high school athletic conferences in the Northeast Region of Ohio, as designated by the OHSAA. If a conference had members that span multiple regions, the conference is placed in the article of the region most of its former ...

. The league added Buckeye and Fairview in 2019. Buckeye and Fairview were two of four schools being left out after eight of the 12 Patriot Athletic Conference schools decided to form a new league with more compact traveling distances. On April 16, 2019, it was announced that Lakewood would join for the 2020-21 school year, leaving the Southwestern Conference in order to do so. On February 20, 2020, it was announced that North Olmsted and Westlake would join for the 2021-22 school year, bring the GLC's membership to 12 schools. Both schools came from the Southwestern Conference. With 12 members, the GLC will split into two divisions for some sports. The East Division will consists of Buckeye, Holy Name, Lakewood, Normandy, Parma, and Valley Forge; the West Division consists of Bay, Elyria Catholic, Fairview, North Olmsted, Rocky River, and Westlake.

End of the conference

In June 2022, Parma City Schools approved a consolidation plan that would close Parma Senior High School along with two elementary schools following the 2022-23 school year. In March 2023, Fairview announced that they would be joining the

Chagrin Valley Conference The Chagrin Valley Conference is a high school athletic conference made up of several schools in Northeast Ohio, United States. The league and its members compete as part of the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA). The conference is name ...

starting with the winter sports season of the 2023-2024 school year. This came following a concern that Fairview would be "the smallest public school in an increasingly growing pool of larger ones." In May 2023, eight GLC members (Bay, Buckeye, Lakewood, Normandy, North Olmsted, Rocky River, Valley Forge, and Westlake) announced that they would be leaving to form a new league for the 2024-2025 school year. This left only Elyria Catholic and Holy Name under the GLC banner. In May, those two announced they would form the North Coast Conference along with five other schools. The NCC will begin with the 2024-25 school year. In July 2024 the eight members that left to form a new league announced the name of their new league, the Cleveland West Conference.

Rivalries

The major rivalries in the GLC include the following: (Interdivisional) Lakewood Rangers vs Fairview Warriors Lakewood Rangers vs Rocky River Pirates (Divisional) (West) Bay Rockets vs Rocky River Pirates (West): Bay Rockets vs Westlake Demons (West): Fairview Warriors vs Rocky River Pirates (East): Buckeye Bucks vs Valley Forge Patriots (East): Normandy Invaders vs Valley Forge Patriots (East): Normandy Invaders vs Parma Senior Redmen (East): Parma Senior Redmen vs Valley Forge Patriots

Championships

This information is of clearly stated champions according to the available end of season reports by the Great Lakes Conference from years 2015-2021.

References

{{Northeast Ohio High School Athletic Conferences Sports organizations established in 2015 Sports in Greater Cleveland Ohio high school sports conferences 2015 establishments in Ohio