The Big East Conference is a high school athletic conference in Eastern Iowa. The conference is made up of primarily 1A schools (the smallest classification of schools in Iowa). Currently, there are nine teams in the conference.
Contents |
| Institution | Location | Founded | Mascot | Colors | Affiliation | 9-12 Enrollment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bellevue | Bellevue | Comets | Public | |||
| Calamus-Wheatland | Wheatland | 1986 | Warriors | Public | ||
| Camanche | Camanche | 1961 | Indians | Public | ||
| Lisbon | Lisbon | Lions | ||||
| Marquette Catholic | Bellevue | 1957 | Mohawks | Private | ||
| Midland | Wyoming | Eagles | Public | |||
| Northeast | Goose Lake | 1962 | Rebels | Public | ||
| Preston | Preston | Trojans | Public | |||
| Prince of Peace Preparatory | Clinton | Irish | Private |
The Big East Conference offers the following 11 sports:
Many of the conference's schools have football programs; however, they are assigned to a district schedule in lieu of a round-robin conference schedule. Additionally, some schools have 8-man programs and others 11-man.
Although the member schools field freshman-sophomore — and in some cases, junior varsity — teams in many of the above-mentioned sports, conference championships are determined at varsity levels only. In some cases, a school might particiapte in a cooperative program with neighboring schools for a given sport while other schools may offer the sport as a stand-alone program (such as wrestling). Additionally, several of the schools offer other sports programs, such as bowling and tennis, but not on a conference basis.
The Big East was founded in the mid-1990s from the merger of the Waspie Conference and the Mid-East Conference. Many of the Mid-East Conference schools had split from the Wapsie Conference around 1980 to form a conference that sponsored all sports, including football. Prior to that point, the Mid-East had served as a conference for football only for eight schools. After Guttenberg left the conference and Lincoln (based in Stanwood) merged with Clarence-Lowden (to eventually become the North Cedar Community School District), the Mid-East decided to pursue a merger. Additionally, the Iowa High School Athletic Association implemented district football for sub-Class 4A schools, eliminating one of the major advantages of the Mid-East. The Wapsie, which had struggled for years, approved the merger and the new conference was formed.
At the turn of the century, the Big East had 13 members. In 2000, Clinton Mater Dei changed its name to Prince of Peace Preparatory. When the Big Bend Conference folded in 2003, Camanche applied for membership into the Big East. Although originally denied, Camanche ended up becoming the 14th member of the conference. Following the 2004–05 school year, Bennett entered into a whole-grade sharing agreement with Durant, an agreement that would eventually see Bennett sharing all high school activities with Durant.
The closure of Bennett High School left the conference with 13 schools. The number dropped to 12 in 2008, when North Cedar—one of the conference's largest schools—agreed to join the newly formed Cedar Valley Conference with seven former members of the Eastern Iowa Hawkeye Conference.
For the 2011–12 school year, only nine of the current 12 members returned. Andrew and East Central each closed their schools, with Andrew entering into a sharing agreement with Bellevue and Maquoketa high schools and East Central sending their students to Northeast of Goose Lake or Preston. Olin discontinued its entire athletic program, with the district entering into shared programs with nearby schools including Midland and Monticello. Also during the summer of 2011, Camanche and Northeast began petitioning to leave the Big East for a new conference, with the Cedar Valley Conference the schools' first choice; no action has been taken to date.