The Southern Five 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 ...

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 ...

. Its membership was concentrated in southeastern Wisconsin and was in existence from 1928 to 1946. All members were affiliated with 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 Five Conference, alternatively known as the Little Five Conference and the Southern State Conference during its history, was formed in 1928 by a group of five medium-sized high schools in

Racine Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ; ; 22 December 1639 – 21 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille, as well as an important literary figure in the Western tra ...

and

Walworth Walworth ( ) is a district of South London, England, within the London Borough of Southwark. It adjoins Camberwell to the south and Elephant and Castle to the north, and is south-east of Charing Cross. Major streets in Walworth include the ...

Counties: Burlington, Delavan (now Delavan-Darien), Elkhorn,

Lake Geneva Lake Geneva is a deep lake on the north side of the Alps, shared between Switzerland and France. It is one of the List of largest lakes of Europe, largest lakes in Western Europe and the largest on the course of the Rhône. Sixty percent () ...

and Whitewater Normal. The addition of

to the conference, first as a football-only member in 1932 and for all sports in 1935 brought the membership roster to its high of six schools. They would only last two more seasons as conference members, and the ledger experienced a net decrease to five schools with Whitewater Normal and

Whitewater Whitewater forms in the context of rapids, in particular, when a river's Stream gradient, gradient changes enough to generate so much turbulence that air is trapped within the water. This forms an unstable current that foam, froths, making t ...

of the Rock River Valley League swapping affiliations. Competition lasted for eighteen years before the members of the Southern Five joined with three IHSA-affiliated high schools in neighboring McHenry County,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

(

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

, Marengo and McHenry) to form the Southern Wisconsin-Northern Illinois Conference, more commonly known as the SWANI Conference, in 1946.

Conference membership history

Full members

Football-only members

Membership timeline

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1928 till:1946 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:13 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:m bar:1 color:tan1 from:1928 till:1946 text:Burlington (1928-1946) bar:2 color:tan1 from:1928 till:1946 text:Delavan (1928-1946) bar:3 color:tan1 from:1928 till:1946 text:Elkhorn (1928-1946) bar:4 color:tan1 from:1928 till:1946 text:Lake Geneva (1928-1946) bar:5 color:tan1 from:1928 till:1937 text:Whitewater Normal (1928-1937) bar:6 color:tan2 from:1932 till:1935 text:Walworth (1932-1935 (football), 1935-1937 (full)) bar:6 color:tan1 from:1935 till:1937 text: bar:7 color:tan1 from:1937 till:1946 text:Whitewater (1937-1946) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:1928

List of conference champions

Boys Basketball

Football

References

{{Wisconsin high school athletic conferences Wisconsin high school sports conferences Sports organizations established in 1928 1928 establishments in Wisconsin 1946 disestablishments in Wisconsin