Western Indiana Conference

The Western Indiana Conference is the name of two IHSAA-sanctioned conferences based in West Central Indiana. The first formed as an eight-team league that formed as a basketball league in 1944 as the West Central Conference.[1] The league started expanding in 1945 and changed its name to the Western Indiana Conference. With consolidation forcing many membership changes in the 1970s (including all the Terre Haute public schools), the conference folded at four members in 1983.

Western Indiana Conference

League	IHSAA
Founded	1999 (second incarnation)
Sports fielded	22 offered men's: 10 women's: 10, and 1 unified
No. of teams	11
Region	9 Counties: Brown, Clay, Hendricks, Johnson, Monroe, Owen Putnam, Sullivan, Vigo
Official website	https://www.wicathletics.com
Locations

A look at all member schools in the Western Indiana Conference, 2019-2024

The second incarnation started in 1999, including four previous members (or their current incarnations) from the old conference, and three other schools from South Central Indiana. Its only change in membership in its first 16 years was in football, where South Vermilion played independently for the 2007 and 2008 seasons before rejoining the conference. March 2014 marked a sea change for the conference, as what originally was an invite for Greencastle turned into inviting the remaining five teams of the West Central Conference to join.[2] All seven WIC schools and all five WCC schools voted to expand the conference into 2015, making a 12 team, two division league.[3] All 12 schools are within 30 miles of Interstate 70 or Interstate 69.

Prior the invitation to Greencastle and other WCC schools went out, Indian Creek was rumored to be considered as an expansion candidate but their invitation was rescinded by the conference in early 2014 due to expanding to 12 teams.[4] Eventually, South Vermillion departed to rejoin the Wabash River Conference in 2016 leaving the conference at 11 teams. Indian Creek was extended an invitation as the replacement for SV in 2017 and accepted bringing the conference back to 12 teams retaining the divisions model.[5]

Since expansion to 12 teams, the conference membership has been less than stable due to long travel times and geographical issues spanning half of the state. After the 2018–2019 school year, Cascade departed from the Western Indiana Conference to join longtime rival and former West Central Conference member Monrovia in the Indiana Crossroads Conference. Cascade filled a vacancy that Park Tudor left. The move leaves the Western Indiana Conference will 11 schools, dissolving the east–west divisions for team sports, except football, going to round robin play.

In 2024-2025, Cascade will rejoin the Western Indiana Conference when Covenant Christian joins the Indiana Crossroads Conference. Similarly, at this time, the four Putnam County schools were in discussions with Crawfordsville, North Montgomery, and Southmont to form a new athletic conference.[6] After discussion and five schools voting to leave the Sagamore Conference, North Putnam announced on May 19, 2023 they will leave the Western Indiana Conference and join with five schools that separated from the Sagamore Conference, Crawfordsville, Frankfort, North Montgomery, Southmont, and Western Boone, to form a new athletic conference that will take shape no later than the 2026-2027 academic year.[7][8][9] These moves collectively leave the Western Indiana Conference with 11 members.