Plano Joins Sandwich Leaving Interstate 8 Conference for Kishwaukee River Conference – Shaw Local
Plano High School, the only remaining founding member of the Interstate 8 Conference since its formation in 1979, is leaving the league to join the Kishwaukee River Conference beginning in the 2023-24 school year.
Plano joins Sandwich, which announced its switch in December, moving to what will now be an eight-team conference comprising Woodstock, Woodstock North, Harvard, Marengo, Richmond-Burton and Johnsburg.
“Everyone has their opinion, but from my perspective, this decision positions our student-athletes to be competitive enough to win conference championships,” Plano athletic director Steve Lucas said. “Hopefully this gives confidence to our coaches and athletes when they enter competition, and creates excitement in the student body where we can increase our participation numbers. The two are linked. »
Plano’s enrollment currently stands at approximately 770, making it one of the smallest schools on Interstate 8 as presently constituted. Schools like Ottawa, Kaneland and Sycamore have nearly double the enrollment. KRC schools are much more comparable in size, with Woodstock being the largest school with 1,003 students, according to the IHSA website.
“We place our athletes and coaches in like-minded schools,” Lucas said. “We certainly don’t want to disadvantage our children. Every time we go to a Sycamore or a Kaneland that’s twice our size, we hit a roadblock. These are very successful programs. We just don’t have their numbers.
Lucas said Plano and Sandwich were approached early on by the Illinois Central Eight, which includes a number of former I-8 conference schools, to join their league exclusively for football. Lucas said they also explored joining the Big Northern Conference, another league with similar sized schools.
Like the KRC, increased travel was a concern when considering the Big Northern.
“We’re just not in a geographic position to have a bunch of schools our size to be able to compete,” Lucas said. “We are delighted with the new competition. Anything I can do to give our kids a competitive edge, I will. For the most part, when we had a coaches vote, a significant number of coaches agreed with this decision. Does anyone like the extra travel time? Certainly not, but it’s not about us. This gives our children the best competitive edge.
Plano’s move is the latest change for an Interstate 8 conference that has undergone a facelift over the past five years. In 2019, six schools from the now defunct Northern Illinois Big 12 – Kaneland, La Salle-Peru, Morris, Ottawa, Rochelle and Sycamore – joined the league. This happened after Coal City, Herscher, Lisle, Manteno, Peotone, Reed-Custer, Streator and Wilmington left to create the Illinois Central Eight Conference.
Together, these changes made Plano and Sandwich the smallest members of the league, and both struggled to compete with schools that eclipsed them in size.
Interstate 8 and the Kishwaukee River began a football-only partnership last fall, combining the two conferences into groups divided by registration size.
Sandwich AD Tim Gipe in December did not say whether his school’s move to KRC for All Sports would have any effect on the football deal between the two leagues. But he noted that the deal was set up in such a way that it would be reassessed after two years.