The Suburban 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 ...

, operating from 1925 to 1985 with its membership concentrated in the suburbs of

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 ...

. Its member schools were aligned 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

1925-1942

The Suburban Conference, originally known as the Milwaukee Suburban Interscholastic Athletic Association, was formed in 1925 by seven high schools located in the

streetcar suburb A streetcar suburb is a residential community whose growth and development was strongly shaped by the use of streetcar lines as a primary means of transportation. Such suburbs developed in the United States in the years before the automobile, when ...

s of Milwaukee: Cudahy, Milwaukee County Agricultural, Shorewood, South Milwaukee, Waukesha, Wauwatosa and

West Allis West Allis is a city in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, United States. A suburb of Milwaukee, it is part of the Milwaukee metropolitan area. The population was 60,325 at the 2020 census, making it the eleventh-most populous city in Wisconsin. His ...

. It was the second athletic conference to form in the Milwaukee area, preceded only by the Milwaukee City Conference in 1893. Milwaukee County School of Agriculture left the conference when it closed in 1928, and its place was taken by the newly opened high school in West Milwaukee in 1929.

Whitefish Bay Whitefish Bay is a large bay on the eastern end of Lake Superior between Michigan, United States, and Ontario, Canada. It is located between Whitefish Point in Michigan and Whiskey Point along the more rugged, largely wilderness Canadian Shield ...

joined the conference in 1933, and their entry into the Suburban Conference brought the membership group to the maximum number of eight schools per the conference's original constitution.

1942-1980

The growth of the Suburban Conference coincided with population growth in the Milwaukee area. West Allis added a second high school in 1939 when Nathan Hale High School added senior high school grades, and they joined the conference in 1942. West Allis High School changed their name to West Allis Central in the process. Nathan Hale's entry brought the number of member schools in the conference to nine, breaking the 1925 constitutional limit on the number of members. An odd number of schools also created scheduling issues that led the conference to explore adding a tenth member in the early 1950s. After making unsuccessful overtures to

Oconomowoc High School Oconomowoc High School is a public high school located in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, United States. It is part of the Oconomowoc Area School District. As of the 2021–22 school year, it had 1,686 students. History The old Oconomowoc High School w ...

to leave the Little Ten Conference, the Suburban Conference extended an invite to the recently opened Greendale High School, and they joined in 1952. Port Washington and Watertown were also reported as candidates for expansion but instead formed half of the new Braveland Conference (along with Cedarburg and Menomonee Falls of the disbanded 4-C Conference) in 1953.

Wauwatosa West High School Wauwatosa West High School is a comprehensive four-year public high school located in the city of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, United States. West opened in 1960/1961 as a sister-school to Wauwatosa East High School; together they are part of the Wau ...

joined the conference soon after it opened in 1961, with Wauwatosa High School becoming Wauwatosa East. They replaced Greendale, who left to join the Braveland Conference for two years before becoming a charter member of the

Parkland Conference The Parkland Conference is a former high school athletic conference with its membership concentrated in southeastern Wisconsin. It was in existence from 1963 to 2006 and all member schools were affiliated with the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athleti ...

. A conference realignment plan that merged the Suburban and Braveland Conferences was also discussed that year but never implemented. 1974 brought an eleventh member to the conference in the form of the newly opened Waukesha North High School, and Waukesha High School changed its name to Waukesha South.

1980-1985

After years of discussion between the high school athletic conferences in southeastern Wisconsin, the WIAA stepped in with a sweeping realignment plan in 1980. Five new schools joined the Suburban: four of the smaller schools from the Milwaukee City Conference (

Juneau Juneau ( ; ), officially the City and Borough of Juneau, is the capital of the U.S. state of Alaska, located along the Gastineau Channel and the Alaskan panhandle. Juneau was named the capital of Alaska in 1906, when the government of wha ...

, Riverside,

Rufus King Rufus King (March 24, 1755April 29, 1827) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father, lawyer, politician, and diplomat. He was a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convent ...

and West Division) and Racine Horlick from the former South Shore Conference. Most sports competed as a single division of sixteen schools with the exception of football, which was partitioned into large-school and small-school divisions: Wauwatosa West and Whitefish Bay were moved over to the small-school division for football in 1982, bringing each division to eight schools. In 1983, Racine Case joined from the

and Racine Park joined from the Milwaukee Area Conference, reuniting the three high schools of the

Racine Unified School District Racine Unified School District (RUSD) is a school district serving the eastern portion of Racine County, Wisconsin. It encompasses a area, and serves the city of Racine and six other towns and villages, which had a combined population of 139, ...

. For the last two years of the Suburban Conference's existence, it was aligned into two divisions for most sports based on enrollment size: the Gold Division contained larger schools and the Blue Division contained the smaller ones: Racine Case and Racine Park joined the large-schools division for football, and they would remain there for the final two seasons of conference play.

Epilogue

The Suburban Conference was realigned out of existence in 1985, with most of its members joining three newly formed conferences in southeastern Wisconsin (the Big Nine, North Shore and Suburban Park conferences). The two Waukesha high schools joined an overhauled Braveland Conference, the four Milwaukee high schools rejoined the City Conference, and West Milwaukee joined the

(where it would remain until it closed in 1992).

Conference membership history

Notes

Membership timeline

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1925 till:1985 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:180 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:1983 text:Cudahy (1925-1985) bar:1 color:blue from:1983 till:1985 bar:2 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1983 text:Shorewood (1925-1985) bar:2 color:blue from:1983 till:1985 bar:3 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1983 text:South Milwaukee (1925-1985) bar:3 color:blue from:1983 till:1985 bar:4 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1974 text:Waukesha (1925-1974) bar:4 color:tan1 from:1974 till:1983 text:Waukesha South (1974-1985) bar:4 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985 bar:5 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1961 text:Wauwatosa (1925-1961) bar:5 color:tan1 from:1961 till:1983 text:Wauwatosa East (1961-1985) bar:5 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985 bar:6 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1928 text:Wauwatosa Aggies (1925-1928) bar:7 color:tan1 from:1925 till:1942 text:West Allis (1925-1942) bar:7 color:tan1 from:1942 till:1983 text:West Allis Central (1942-1985) bar:7 color:blue from:1983 till:1985 bar:8 color:tan1 from:1929 till:1983 text:West Milwaukee (1929-1985) bar:8 color:blue from:1983 till:1985 bar:9 color:tan1 from:1933 till:1983 text:Whitefish Bay (1933-1985) bar:9 color:blue from:1983 till:1985 bar:10 color:tan1 from:1942 till:1983 text:Nathan Hale (1942-1985) bar:10 color:blue from:1983 till:1985 bar:11 color:tan1 from:1952 till:1961 text:Greendale (1952-1961) bar:12 color:tan1 from:1961 till:1983 text:Wauwatosa West (1961-1985) bar:12 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985 bar:13 color:tan1 from:1974 till:1983 text:Waukesha North (1974-1985) bar:13 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985 bar:14 color:tan1 from:1980 till:1985 text:Milwaukee Juneau (1980-1985) bar:14 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985 bar:15 color:tan1 from:1980 till:1985 text:Milwaukee Riverside (1980-1985) bar:15 color:blue from:1983 till:1985 bar:16 color:tan1 from:1980 till:1985 text:Milwaukee Rufus King (1980-1985) bar:16 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985 bar:17 color:tan1 from:1980 till:1985 text:Milwaukee West Division (1980-1985) bar:17 color:blue from:1983 till:1985 bar:18 color:tan1 from:1980 till:1983 text:Racine Horlick (1980-1985) bar:18 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985 bar:19 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985 text:Racine Case (1983-1985) bar:20 color:yelloworange from:1983 till:1985 text:Racine Park (1983-1985) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:1925

List of state champions

Fall sports

Winter sports

Spring sports

List of conference champions

Boys Basketball

Girls Basketball

Football

References

{{Wisconsin high school athletic conferences Wisconsin high school sports conferences Sports organizations established in 1925 1925 establishments in Wisconsin 1985 disestablishments in Wisconsin