The Little Ten 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 ...

, formed in 1925 and reorganizing into the Wisconsin Little Ten Conference in 1970.

History

1925-1959

The Little Ten Conference was founded in 1925 by ten medium- to smaller-sized schools in south central Wisconsin:

Beaver Dam A beaver dam or beaver impoundment is a dam built by beavers; it creates a pond which protects against predators such as coyotes, alligators, cougars, foxes, eagles, wolves and bears, and holds their food during winter. These structures modify th ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

Columbus Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to: * Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), the Italian explorer * Columbus, Ohio, the capital city of the U.S. state of Ohio * Columbus, Georgia, a city i ...

, Hartford Union, Horicon, Mayville,

Portage Portage or portaging ( CA: ; ) is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A path where items are regularly carried between bodies of water is also called a '' ...

Ripon Ripon () is a cathedral city and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. The city is located at the confluence of two tributaries of the River Ure, the Laver and Skell. Within the boundaries of the historic West Riding of Yorkshire, the ...

, Watertown and

Waupun Waupun is a city in Dodge and Fond du Lac counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 11,344 at the 2020 census. Of this, 7,795 were in Dodge County, and 3,549 were in Fond du Lac County. In Fond du Lac County, the Town of Waup ...

. The conference went through a few membership changes during its first few seasons, starting with the loss of Portage to the South Central Conference in 1926 and Watertown to the Southern Six in 1928. The conference added West Bend in 1929 and Oconomowoc in 1930 to bring conference membership back up to ten. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, several schools in the northern and western suburbs of the

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 ...

area ( Cedarburg,

Menomonee Falls Menomonee Falls is a village in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, United States. Its population was 38,527 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the most-populous village in Wisconsin. It is part of the Milwaukee metropolitan area. ...

, Port Washington and former members Watertown) applied for membership in the Little Ten multiple times, only to be rejected at each attempt over concerns about managing a fourteen-member conference. This series of rejections led to the formation of the Braveland Conference in 1953 by the four failed Little Ten applicants. The Little Ten would finally expand its membership roster in 1959, when

Arrowhead An arrowhead or point is the usually sharpened and hardened tip of an arrow, which contributes a majority of the projectile mass and is responsible for impacting and penetrating a target, or sometimes for special purposes such as signaling. ...

joined from the Southeastern Wisconsin Conference and Watertown rejoined from the Braveland Conference.

1959-1970

With conference membership increasing to twelve, the Little Ten subdivided into Northern and Southern Divisions for the 1959-60 school year: In 1965, Arrowhead left to join the Southeastern Badger Conference, bringing conference membership to eleven. By the late 1960s, increasing gaps in enrollment between the smaller schools in the Northern Little Ten and the larger schools in the Southern Little Ten were creating problems with competitive balance, and the schools in the Southern Little Ten began looking to secede from the conference. The conference officially subdivided into two separate conferences in 1966 and both conferences completely disbanded in 1970. The five Southern Little Ten members (six with the split of West Bend into

East East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...

and

West West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...

) joined with Waupun, who had the highest enrollment in the Northern Little Ten, to form the Wisconsin Little Ten Conference. The five schools in the Northern Little Ten disbanded to find other conferences with schools more similar in enrollment size.

Conference membership history

Notes

Membership timeline

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1925 till:1970 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:1925 till:1959 text:Beaver Dam (1925-1970) bar:1 color:skyblue from:1959 till:1970 text: bar:2 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1959 text:Berlin (1925-1970) bar:2 color:blue from:1959 till:1970 text: bar:3 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1959 text:Columbus (1925-1970) bar:3 color:blue from:1959 till:1970 text: bar:4 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1959 text:Hartford Union (1925-1970) bar:4 color:skyblue from:1959 till:1970 text: bar:5 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1959 text:Horicon (1925-1970) bar:5 color:blue from:1959 till:1970 text: bar:6 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1959 text:Mayville (1925-1970) bar:6 color:blue from:1959 till:1970 text: bar:7 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1926 text:Portage (1925-1926) bar:8 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1959 text:Ripon (1925-1970) bar:8 color:blue from:1959 till:1970 text: bar:9 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1928 text:Watertown (1925-1928) bar:9 color:skyblue from:1959 till:1970 text:(1959-1970) bar:10 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1959 text:Waupun (1925-1970) bar:10 color:blue from:1959 till:1970 text: bar:11 color:tan1 from:1929 till:1959 text:West Bend (1929-1970) bar:11 color:skyblue from:1959 till:1970 text: bar:12 color:tan1 from:1930 till:1959 text:Oconomowoc (1930-1970) bar:12 color:skyblue from:1959 till:1970 text: bar:13 color:skyblue from:1959 till:1965 text:Arrowhead (1959-1965) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:1925

List of state champions

Fall sports

None

Winter sports

Spring sports

List of conference champions

Boys Basketball

Football

References

{{Wisconsin high school athletic conferences Wisconsin high school sports conferences Sports organizations established in 1925 1925 establishments in Wisconsin 1970 disestablishments in Wisconsin