The Mountain Valley Conference (MVC) was an athletic conference consisting of six large

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

s and four school districts from Monroe County and the Lehighton Area School District from Carbon County,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

in the

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. It was part of District XI of the

Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association, Inc. (PIAA) is one of the governing bodies of Secondary school, high school and middle school athletics for Pennsylvania. PIAA's main office is located in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Harri ...

(PIAA). In 2014, its teams were mostly assimilated into the 18-team league of large eastern and northeastern Pennsylvania high schools known as the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference.

History

There had been widespread discussion about high school league realignment in the

Lehigh Valley The Lehigh Valley () is a geography, geographic and urban area, metropolitan region formed by the Lehigh River in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, Lehigh and Northampton County, Pennsylvania, Northampton counties in eastern Pennsylvania. It is a co ...

starting in late 1990 and early 1991. In the fall of 1993, the Mountain Valley Conference was formed. The new league included all the public high schools in Monroe County at the time: Stroudsburg, East Stroudsburg, Pocono Mountain, and Pleasant Valley High Schools, plus

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and

Northampton Northampton ( ) is a town and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is the county town of Northamptonshire and the administrative centre of the Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority of West Northamptonshire. The town is sit ...

High Schools from Northampton County. Lehighton High School also later joined the new league, giving it an initial membership of seven schools when competition began in the 1994-95 school year. After the 1997-98 school year, the MVC added more schools in Lehigh and

Counties: Easton,

Freedom Freedom is the power or right to speak, act, and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself one's own laws". In one definition, something is "free" i ...

Liberty Liberty is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views. The concept of liberty can vary depending on perspective and context. In the Constitutional ...

, Parkland, and

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all joined the league. After 2001-02, the seven schools in Lehigh and Northampton Counties left the league to help form the Lehigh Valley Conference. East Stroudsburg Area School District opened a new high school near the turn of the century, and Pocono Mountain School District opened a new high school in 2002; both new schools were added to the MVC for the start of the 2002-03 school year. MVC membership has been stable from 2002 to 2012. In 2012,

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's two large public schools, Dieruff High School and

William Allen High School William Allen High School, often referred to as Allen High School or simply Allen, is one of two large, urban state school, public secondary education in the United States, high schools of the Allentown School District in Allentown, Pennsylvania. ...

, joined the MVC as associate members for football only for a four-year term. All schools voted to allow both Allentown teams into the conference with only Lehighton voting against it. In the 2014-2015 season, six Monroe County schools became part of the Lehigh Valley Conference, expanding that conference to a large 18-team super conference, which was subsequently renamed the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference. Lehighton left the Mountain Valley Conference in most sports and now participate in the Schuylkill League. They play football in the Anthracite Football League and act as an independent team in

field hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...

High schools

The seven high school teams that previously comprised the Mountain Valley Conference (and their locations) were: * East Stroudsburg South Cavaliers ( East Stroudsburg). * East Stroudsburg North Timberwolves ( Bushkill) * Pocono Mountain East Cardinals ( Swiftwater) * Pocono Mountain West Panthers ( Pocono Summit) * Stroudsburg Mountaineers ( Stroudsburg) * Pleasant Valley Bears ( Brodheadsville) * Lehighton Indians ( Lehighton) Football only: * Allen Canaries (

) * Dieruff Huskies (Allentown)

District

The Mountain Valley Conference was part of District XI of the PIAA.

Mountain Valley Conference

National Football League (NFL)

* Kyshoen Jarrett, former

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(East Stroudsburg South High School) * James Mungro, former

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive American football plays#Offensive terminology, handoffs from the quarterback to Rush (American football)#Offense ...

Indianapolis Colts The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. The Colts compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC South, South division. Since the 2008 India ...

and

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champion (East Stroudsburg South High School) * Chris Neild, former

nose tackle A defensive tackle (DT) is a position in American football that typically lines up on the line of scrimmage, opposite one of the Guard (American football), offensive guards; however, he may also line up opposite one of the offensive Tackle (gridir ...

Houston Texans The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston. The Texans compete in the National Football League as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC South, South division. The team plays its home games at N ...

and

(Stroudsburg High School)

Arena Football League (AFL)

* Kevin Nagle, former fullback and

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and typically line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and so back up the defensive linemen. They play closer to the line ...

Colorado Crush The Colorado Crush were an arena football team based in Denver, Colorado. They began play as a 2003 Arena Football League expansion team. The Crush played in the Central Division of the American Conference until the Arena Football League suspen ...

and

Orlando Predators The Orlando Predators were a professional arena football team based in Orlando, Florida and member of the Arena Football League (AFL). The team was most recently owned by Orlando Predators LLC, a company owned by David A. Siegel, and played it ...

(Pleasant Valley High School)

References

External links

Mountain Valley Conference
archived former website {{Mountain Valley Conference (Pennsylvania) Monroe County, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania high school sports conferences Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association