The South Central Conference is a high school athletic conference in Wisconsin. Originally founded in 1926, it disbanded in 1941 only to reconstitute eleven years later.
In 1952, most of the schools that were part of the original incarnation of the South Central Conference joined together and reformed the conference.[7] Baraboo, Portage, Reedsburg, Richland Center and Wisconsin Dells all rejoined from the Southern Ten Conference (with the other five schools forming the nucleus of the new Badger Conference).[8][9] Sparta, Tomah and Viroqua rejoined from the West Central Conference, along with newcomers Mauston and Nekoosa.[10] In 1963, the conference added two schools to bring membership to twelve: Black River Falls from the Mississippi Valley Conference and Sauk Prairie from the Tri-County League.[11] The conference also subdivided into Northern and Southern sections, an alignment that would last for three seasons:
Membership of the South Central Conference underwent a few changes after the initial reformation and expansion period. Nekoosa left the conference in 1966 to join the short-lived Vacationland Conference,[12] Viroqua joined the Southwest Wisconsin Activities League in 1969[13] and Richland Center joined the SWAL two years later.[14] They were replaced by Adams-Friendship, who were left without a conference after the Vacationland disbanded in 1970.[15][16] After entering the league together fourteen years earlier, Black River Falls and Sauk Prairie exited the South Central in 1977 to join the Coulee Conference and Badger Conference, respectively.[17] Nekoosa rejoined the South Central Conference in 1982, after a four-year stint in the Cloverbelt Conference.[18] Seven years later, Sparta and Tomah left to join with the larger La Crosse-area schools to form the new Mississippi Valley Conference.[19][20] Membership through the 1990s remained consistent at seven schools, but more significant changes were coming at the turn of the century.
As the South Central Conference approached the fiftieth anniversary of its reformation, three of its original member schools (Baraboo, Portage and Reedsburg) left to join the Badger Conference as part of a five-school expansion.[21] These three schools had the largest enrollment levels in the South Central Conference and wanted to join a conference more in line with their size.[22] They were replaced by Lodi and Poynette from the Capitol Conference and Westfield from the disbanded Dual County Conference.[23] Lodi and Poynette quickly became disappointed with the longer travel distances between conference opponents[24] and returned to the Capitol Conference five years after their exit.[25] They were replaced by Wautoma, formerly of the East Central Flyway Conference, bringing conference membership to six schools.[26] This figure is set to expand in 2025, when Berlin and Ripon join from the East Central Conference, which is set to be realigned out of existence by the WIAA.[27]
