Suburban League (Chicago area)

The Suburban League, located in the Chicago metropolitan area, was formed in the fall of 1913 following the dissolution of the Cook County High School League the previous June. The original members were Evanston, LaGrange, Morgan Park, Morton, New Trier, Oak Park, Proviso, Thornton, and University High. Morgan Park lasted only one year in the league, because shortly after joining, the town was annexed to the city of Chicago. The fall of 1915 saw Deerfield-Shields (now called Highland Park) and Bloom join the league, and by 1920 Riverside (now Riverside-Brookfield), Waukegan, and Blue Island (now Eisenhower) were in the league. Kankakee joined in 1922. In 1924 Riverside left to join the newly formed West Suburban Conference.

During most of the history of the Suburban League, however, only five of the schools could be considered athletic powers--namely Oak Park, New Trier, Evanston, University, and Deerfield-Shields. The schools in the south suburbs were particularly uncompetitive, and the league tried to accommodate them by providing "B division" competition for the lesser powers. This was done erratically, but in the fall of 1925 the league formally split into two divisions. Dissatisfaction continued and the following year the league dissolved. The south suburban schools along with University High (which had declined as an athletic power) formed a separate league, the South Suburban League, beginning with the basketball season of 1927.

The traditional powers--Oak Park, New Trier, Evanston, LaGrange, Deerfield-Shields, and strongly emerging Proviso and Waukegan continued to compete against each other informally, although the newspapers continued to recognized "Suburban League championships" in some sports from among those schools. Finally in March of 1928 the a new Suburban League was formally organized with six members--Oak Park, New Trier, Evanston, LaGrange, Deerfield-Shields, and Proviso. The league actually began operation in the fall of 1928.

Throughout the history of the "original" Suburban League, Oak Park was obviously the dominate power in most all the sports. New Trier managed to carve out a turf in swimming, Evanston in basketball, University in track and field and in tennis, and Deerfield-Shields in golf. Morton was beginning to emerge as a basketball power in the mid-1920s.

During a few years in the 1930s, Highland Park (previously Deerfield-Shields) dropped out of the league, due to Depression-era financial constraints. Waukegan joined the league in 1935. During three years in the late 1940s (1947-49), Thornton of the South Suburban League belonged to the league. The school was the dominant power of the South Suburban league and undoubtedly felt it would upgrade its program by competing against the better competition in the Suburban League. The experiment did not work--the school did poorly in competition and travel to the South suburbs was burdensome--and Thornton returned to the South Suburban League.

Thornton was replaced in the Suburban League by Niles, and the eight-school circuit remained with the same membership until 1972, when Highland Park and Niles East (formerly Niles) left to join the Central Suburban League. The remaining members stayed together until disbanding at the end of the 1974-75 school year. New Trier East (formerly New Trier), Evanston, and Waukegan joined the Central Suburban League; Morton East (formerly Morton) joined the DesPlaines Valley League; and Oak Park and Proviso East (formerly Proviso) joined the West Suburban Conference.

ee also

Schools of the Suburban League eventually found new homes in the following leagues:

* Central Suburban League
* Mid-Suburban Conference
* North Suburban Conference
* West Suburban Conference