Reshuffling in Illinois
Chapter One
By Kent McDill
Illinois Content Coordinator
This is the first in a series, presented by coachesaid.com, looking at the many conference reconfigurations that are going on through Illinois, this year and next.
We start with the West Prairie Trails Conference, a mega-conference for football that is breaking up after this season.
"Four years ago, the West Central Conference, the Prairie Land Conference, and the Lincoln Trails Conference combined to form the West Prairie Trails Conference,'' said Don Bigley of the West Central Conference and Pittsfield High School. "Thirty schools were formed into a four-division conference with the divisions being the Southwest, Southeast, Northwest, Northeast. At the conclusion of the 2009 Football season the West Prairie Trails will cease to exist."
The West Prairie Trails Conference is a football-only conference.
As constituted for the 2009 football season, the West Prairie Trails Northeast Division includes Kewanee-Wethersfield, Lewiston, Princeville, Cambridge, Abingdon, Galva and Peoria Heights.
The West Prairie Trails Northwest Division includes United, Mercer County, Stark County, Oneida ROWVA, Elmwood-Brimfield, Cuba and West Central. The West Prairie Trails Southeast Division has Bushnell-Prairie City, Havana, Knoxville, Unity, West Prairie and South Fulton. The Southwest Division includes Illini-West, Camp Point Central, Pittsfield, Hamilton, Rushville-Industry and Beardstown.
The mega conference was created, in part, in response to the football needs of so many schools that co-op for that sport and not for the others. New co-ops would perhaps require a change in division alignment but not the end of the conference as a whole, as might happen in a smaller conference.
Unfortunately, a conference of that size had logistical and competitive difficulties that prompted schools to look for another answer, and the new West Central Conference was formed for the 2010-2011 season for all sports.
At the same time, the Prairieland Conference was also reinvented for next season for all sports, including football, and took Rushville/Industry, Beardstown and West Prairie with it from the old West Central Conference.
The new West Central includes former members Camp Point Central, Hamilton, Illini West, Payson, Pittsfield, Augusta Southeastern, Mendon Unity, Warsaw and Western. New members, joining from the current Olympic Conference, will be Macomb, Monmouth-Roseville, Orion, Sherrard and Taylor-Rockridge.
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