Milwaukee City Conference

The Milwaukee City Conference (also known as "City Conference") is a high school athletic conference in Wisconsin. All full-time member institutions are located in the city of Milwaukee and are members of the Milwaukee Public Schools system.

History

1893-1930

The Milwaukee City Conference was founded in 1893, when Milwaukee opened a second public high school (South Division) and regular athletic competition was established between East Division and South Division High Schools. The conference added a third member in 1894 when West Division High School opened and expanded to five in 1906 when Boys Technical and Trade High School (now Bradley Tech) and North Division High School opened. By 1920, the conference had added three more schools in Washington (1911), Bay View (1914) and Lincoln (1920). During this time period, the City Conference established themselves as a dominant force in track and field, taking the team title in twenty-five WIAA competitions between 1895 and 1929.

1930-1966

The City Conference added a ninth member in 1930, one year after the village of North Milwaukee was annexed into the City of Milwaukee. The village had its own high school prior to annexation, and after North Milwaukee High School was absorbed into MPS it became Custer High School in order to avoid confusion with North Division. Three new high schools were built in consecutive years in the 1930s as Works Progress Administration projects: Juneau (1932), Pulaski (1933) and Rufus King (1934). All became members of the City Conference after opening. Membership remained stable at twelve schools until the 1960s. John Marshall High School was opened as a combination junior/senior high school on the city's north side in 1961, and two high schools were added in 1966 as a direct result of Milwaukee’s annexation of unincorporated areas in the years prior: James Madison High School in the former town of Granville and Alexander Hamilton High School in the former town of Greenfield. Granville already had its own high school at this time, and when their district lost territory due to annexation, it was renamed Brown Deer High School after the village where it was located.

1966-1993

In 1979, Lincoln High School closed and Harold S. Vincent High School opened on the city's far northwest side as a replacement. In the years prior, realignment of the high school athletic conferences in southeastern Wisconsin was discussed extensively, driven mostly by the WIAA's desire to get the high schools in Racine and Kenosha into a larger conference after they were forced out of the Big Eight Conference in 1970. The five-member South Shore Conference was created as a result, and competition lasted for ten years before its dissolution. Two members of the South Shore ( Kenosha Tremper and Racine Park) joined the City Conference, and four of the City Conference's smaller members joined the Suburban Conference (Juneau, Riverside, Rufus King and West Division). Due to the expansion of the conference's geographic footprint, the conference was briefly known as the Milwaukee Area Conference. The newly renamed conference made a slight adjustment in 1983 when Kenosha Bradford joined from the Braveland Conference to replace Racine Park after their exit to the Suburban Conference. The high schools in Kenosha left the MAC in 1985, taking four schools on the south side of Milwaukee with them (Bay View, Hamilton, Pulaski and South Division) and rejoining with the Racine high schools to form the Big Nine Conference. During that same year, the four high schools who left for the Suburban Conference rejoined after it was realigned out of existence, and the MAC changed its name back to the Milwaukee City Conference. The four south side Milwaukee high schools in the Big Nine did not want this realignment and threatened to sue the WIAA to rejoin the City Conference. Bay View, Hamilton, Pulaski and South Division all rejoined the City Conference in 1993.

1993-present

With the City Conference made whole again after the 1993 realignment, new schools continued to join the conference after they opened. Milwaukee School of Languages and Wisconsin Conservatory of Lifelong Learning joined in 2000 and 2001, respectively. Malcolm X Academy joined the City Conference in 2003 and left when it closed four years later. Solomon Juneau High School closed in 2006, reopening in 2012 as MacDowell Montessori School (the athletics program still competes under the Juneau banner). Reagan College Prep High School in the former Town of Lake took the place of Malcolm X Academy when it opened in 2007. Three more school openings rounded out the membership of the City Conference: Carmen in 2014, Golda Meir in 2017 and Audubon Tech in 2022.

List of member schools

Current members

Notes

Affiliate members

Former members

Co-op teams

Several co-op teams exist in the conference. These co-op teams usually include a full-time member and an affiliate member. The "host" school is listed in bold.

*Bay View & Wisconsin Conservatory of Lifelong Learning (football, boys' & girls' tennis)
*Pulaski & Milwaukee High School of the Arts (football, girls' volleyball, baseball, boys' tennis, girls' soccer)
*Marshall & School Of Languages (football)
*Ronald W. Reagan & Wisconsin Conservatory of Lifelong Learning (girls' basketball)
*Madison, Marshall, & School Of Languages (boys' tennis)
*South Division & Bradley Tech (boys' tennis)
*Pulaski, Milwaukee High School of the Arts, and Ronald W. Reagan (girls' and boys' swimming)
*Riverside and Shorewood (wrestling)

Membership timeline

DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:20
Period = from:1893 till:2030
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:1893 till:1915 text:East Division (1893-1915), Riverside (1915-1980)
bar:1 color:tan1 from:1915 till:1980 text:
bar:1 color:tan1 from:1985 till:2030 text:Riverside University (1985-present)
bar:2 color:tan1 from:1893 till:1985 text:South Division (1893-1985)
bar:2 color:tan1 from:1993 till:2030 text:(1993-present)
bar:3 color:tan1 from:1894 till:1980 text:West Division (1894-1980)
bar:3 color:tan1 from:1985 till:2030 text:High School of the Arts (1985-present)
bar:4 color:tan1 from:1906 till:1975 text:Boys Tech (1906-1975)
bar:4 color:tan1 from:1975 till:2002 text:Tech (1975-2002)
bar:4 color:tan1 from:2002 till:2030 text:Bradley Tech (2002-present)
bar:5 color:tan1 from:1906 till:2030 text:North Division (1906-1980)
bar:6 color:tan1 from:1911 till:2030 text:Washington (1911-1980)
bar:7 color:tan1 from:1914 till:1985 text:Bay View (1914-1985)
bar:7 color:tan1 from:1993 till:2030 text:(1993-present)
bar:8 color:tan1 from:1920 till:1979 text:Lincoln (1920-1979)
bar:9 color:tan1 from:1930 till:2011 text:Custer (1930-2011)
bar:9 color:tan1 from:2011 till:2030 text:Obama SCTE (2011-present)
bar:10 color:tan1 from:1932 till:1980 text:Juneau (1932-1980)
bar:10 color:tan1 from:1985 till:2006 text:(1985-2006)
bar:10 color:tan1 from:2012 till:2030 text:(2012-present)
bar:11 color:tan1 from:1933 till:1985 text:Pulaski (1933-1985)
bar:11 color:tan1 from:1993 till:2030 text:(1993-present)
bar:12 color:tan1 from:1934 till:1980 text:Rufus King (1934-1980)
bar:12 color:tan1 from:1985 till:2030 text:(1985-present)
bar:13 color:tan1 from:1961 till:2030 text:Marshall (1961-present)
bar:14 color:tan1 from:1966 till:1985 text:Hamilton (1966-1985)
bar:14 color:tan1 from:1993 till:2030 text:(1993-present)
bar:15 color:tan1 from:1966 till:1996 text:Madison (1966-1996)
bar:15 color:tan1 from:1996 till:2030 text:Madison University (1996-present)
bar:16 color:tan1 from:1979 till:2030 text:Vincent (1979-present)
bar:17 color:tan1 from:1980 till:1985 text:Kenosha Tremper (1980-1985)
bar:18 color:tan1 from:1980 till:1983 text:Racine Park (1980-1983)
bar:19 color:tan1 from:1983 till:1985 text:Kenosha Bradford (1983-1985)
bar:20 color:tan1 from:2000 till:2030 text:School of Languages (2000-present)
bar:21 color:tan1 from:2001 till:2030 text:WCLL (2001-present)
bar:22 color:tan1 from:2003 till:2007 text:Malcolm X Academy (2003-2007)
bar:23 color:tan1 from:2007 till:2030 text:Reagan Prep (2007-present)
bar:24 color:tan1 from:2014 till:2030 text:Carmen (2014-present)
bar:25 color:tan1 from:2017 till:2030 text:Golda Meir (2017-present)
bar:26 color:tan1 from:2022 till:2030 text:Audubon Tech (2022-present)

ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:10 start:1893

Membership map

Sanctioned sports

*Boys and girls
**Basketball
**Cross country
**Swimming
**Tennis
**Track and field
*Boys only
**Baseball
**Football
**Wrestling
*Girls only
**Softball
**Volleyball

List of state championships

Fall sports

Winter sports

The City Conference did not allow its teams to compete in the WIAA tournament until the 1951-52 season.

Spring sports

Controversy

Recently the WIAA decided to restrict travel outside Wisconsin and its border states. The decision was made as a response to the practice of City Conference boys' basketball teams, which often traveled long distances to find competition. Athletic directors from City schools argued against the decision, saying the travel was paid for by the host school or event organizer.
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The situation has caused some supporters to call for the City Conference to follow the lead of leagues in other major cities, such as Chicago and Philadelphia, to hold its own tournaments separate from the WIAA.

See also

List of high school athletic conferences in Wisconsin

References

External links

*Milwaukee City Conference pages at Wissports.net

Football (Blackbourn Division)

Football (Richardson Division)

Boys Basketball

Girls BasketballMilwaukee Journal-Sentinel Preps Plus Online

{{Wisconsin high school athletic conferences

Wisconsin high school sports conferences
Sports organizations established in 1893
1893 establishments in Wisconsin
Sports in Milwaukee