After the 2025-26 school year, Conference Indiana, an athletic conference within the Indiana High School Athletic Association, will no longer exist due to three out of the six high schools dropping from the conference.
Conference Indiana currently consists of Bloomington North, Bloomington South, Southport, Columbus North, Terre Haute North, and Terre Haute South.
For the 2026-27 school year, Bloomington North will join the Mid-State Conference while both Terre Haute North and Terre Haute South will join the Sagamore Athletic Conference. Southport will be independent for the upcoming years. This leaves Bloomington South and Columbus North to find a new conference for later school years.
Why is Conference Indiana Ending?
Bloomington South’s athletic director J.R. Holmes said, “there’s always been talk of maybe a couple of schools pulling out, and I think a couple of schools felt like they were in the outer perimeters.” Talking about Terre Haute North and Terre Haute South he said, “people didn’t want to be in our conference because of the distance to drive to Terre Haute and back. So, I think they saw a chance that [the conference] was going to dissolve anyway” in the coming years.
What does South plan to do about it?
Holmes said, “we’re looking for another conference to get into. It’s difficult, but we’re still exploring options.”
The hope is to get into a conference by this spring; however, South’s participation won’t be able to take effect until 2027. He said, “we’ve had three [conferences] that came to me to pick [South] up for” the 2026-27 school year, but South would still need to find a permanent conference for the 2027-28 school year.
The biggest concern about South not being in a conference for next school year is finding football games. Other sports will be able to find opponents, but football is much more difficult. Holmes said, “most of the other sports will be able to find opportunities to play other people because they play at different times. Football is only nine weeks. You have to play on Friday and there aren’t very many openings for that.”
Holmes said he thinks “we’re a pretty good addition to any [conference] we go to.” Over the next year, South will be adjusting to not having a conference, but hopefully by 2027 Bloomington South will have a spot in one of the Indiana high school conferences.
