The Southern Eight Conference is a former high school

athletic conference An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams which play competitively against each other in a sports league. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller Division (sport), divisions, with the best teams competing at successively ...

in southwestern

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 1971 to 1987. All member schools belonged to the

Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) is the regulatory body for all high school sports in Wisconsin. Its history dates to 1895, making it the earliest continually existing high school athletic organization in the country. ...

History

The Southern Eight Conference was formed as the result of a split of member schools in the Southwest Wisconsin Athletic League. In 1970,

Richland Center High School Richland may refer to: Places in the United States Cities, towns, and unincorporated communities *Richland, Georgia, a city * Richland, Rush County, Indiana, an unincorporated community * Richland, Iowa, a city * Richland, Kansas, a ghost town ...

was accepted as the fifteenth member of the SWAL (effective 1971) and was added to the seven-member North Section. Soon after their acceptance, the other eight schools in the South Section voted to split the conference along geographic lines to maintain traditional rivalries and cut transportation expenses. The Southern Eight began competition in 1971, and its membership roster was remarkably stable over the course of its history. The only changes happened in 1983 with Mount Horeb's exit to the

Capitol Conference The Capitol Conference was a high school athletic conference in the Illinois High School Association (IHSA), based in Central Illinois Central Illinois is a region of the U.S. state of Illinois that consists of the entire central third of the s ...

and the addition of Southwestern High School in Hazel Green. The end of the Southern Eight Conference came in 1987, when the conference remerged with the Southwest Wisconsin Athletic League to create a new fourteen-member conference subdivided by enrollment size.

Conference membership history

Membership timeline

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1971 till:1987 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:1971 till:1987 text:Cuba City (1971-1987) bar:2 color:tan1 from:1971 till:1987 text:Darlington (1971-1987) bar:3 color:tan1 from:1971 till:1987 text:Dodgeville (1971-1987) bar:4 color:tan1 from:1971 till:1987 text:Iowa-Grant (1971-1987) bar:5 color:tan1 from:1971 till:1987 text:Lancaster (1971-1987) bar:6 color:tan1 from:1971 till:1987 text:Mineral Point (1971-1987) bar:7 color:tan1 from:1971 till:1983 text:Mount Horeb (1971-1983) bar:8 color:tan1 from:1971 till:1987 text:Platteville (1971-1987) bar:9 color:tan1 from:1983 till:1987 text:Southwestern (1983-1987) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:1971

List of state champions

Fall sports

Winter sports

Spring sports

None

List of conference champions

Boys Basketball

Girls Basketball

Football

References

{{Wisconsin high school athletic conferences Wisconsin high school sports conferences Sports organizations established in 1971 1971 establishments in Wisconsin 1987 disestablishments in Wisconsin