Lehigh Valley Conference

The Lehigh Valley Interscholastic Athletic Conference, known informally as the Lehigh Valley Conference or LVC, was an athletic conference consisting of 12 of the largest high schools from Lehigh and Northampton counties in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. It was part of District XI of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association. In 2014, its teams were mostly assimilated into the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, an even larger 18-team league of the largest high schools in the Lehigh Valley and Pocono Mountains regions of eastern and northeastern Pennsylvania.

History

Founded on November 14, 2001, the newly formed Lehigh Valley Conference rejoined most of the 12 schools that formerly competed in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference at various times from 1976 to 1997, before five schools left in 1997 to join the Mountain Valley Conference. The LVC got off the ground after Parkland athletic director and head football coach Richard T. Sniscak was appointed principal of Parkland High School in May 2001 before earning a principal certification or a master's degree. In October 2001, Sniscak was approached by Parkland School Board member and Emmaus High School principal Dr. Herman Corradetti with the idea of reuniting the area schools that had competed in the East Penn Conference with a new conference, and played an intricate role in its formation.
In 1994, Phillipsburg High School left the East Penn Conference to join the Skyland Conference in New Jersey, which made was necessary for it to compete in NJISAA football playoffs. The same year, Northampton Area High School joined the MVC. Eleven of these schools then reunited, along with Nazareth Area High School, to form the LVC, which previously competed in the Colonial League before moving to the MVC in 1994. In 2002, Bethlehem Catholic High School was granted admission to the conference. In the 2002-03 school year, LVC conference play began.
In 2012, Allentown's two large public high schools, Allen High School and Dieruff High School, decided to join the MVC as associate members for football only. Then, on October 2, 2013, the LVC voted to invite six Monroe County high schools: Stroudsburg High School in Stroudsburg, East Stroudsburg High School North in Dingmans Ferry, East Stroudsburg High School South in East Stroudsburg, Pocono Mountain East High School in Swiftwater, Pocono Mountain West High School in Pocono Summit, and Pleasant Valley Area High School in Brodheadsville. The remaining MVC school, Lehighton Area High School, had already announced in 2012 they would join the Schuylkill League.

High schools

The 12 high school teams in the Lehigh Valley Conference were:

Allen High School Canaries
Allentown Central Catholic High School Vikings
Bethlehem Catholic High School Golden Hawks
Dieruff High School Huskies
Easton Area High School Red Rovers
Emmaus High School Green Hornets
Freedom High School Patriots
Liberty High School Hurricanes
Nazareth Area High School Blue Eagles
Northampton Area High School Konkrete Kids
Parkland High School Trojans
Whitehall High School Zephyrs

Former member of the East Penn Conference :

Phillipsburg High School Stateliners

Dieruff High School and William Allen High School competed in all sports except football where, beginning in 2012, in the smaller Mountain Valley Conference.
In 2013, the Lehigh Valley Conference invited the six Monroe County members of the Mountain Valley Conference to join the LVC. The schools accepted the invitation and formed an 18-school conference, called the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, that began play in the 2014–15 school year.

Records

Among Lehigh Valley Conference schools, Emmaus High School holds the record for most Pennsylvania state championships in all sports since the league's creation. Parkland High School holds the record for the most conference championships in all sports.

Television coverage

Lehigh Valley Conference football, boys and girls basketball games and wrestling matches were broadcast on Service Electric's Channel 2, a Lehigh Valley-based cable station, during their respective seasons. RCN 4, another local television station, also broadcast the Lehigh Valley Conference's football, basketball and wrestling games and matches.
Service Electric also broadcast "Plays of the Week", a weekly segment sponsored by Yocco's Hot Dogs, featuring the best football, basketball, wrestling, and other Lehigh Valley Conference sports highlights of the week.

Sports

Lehigh Valley Conference football

Lehigh Valley Conference football teams routinely ranked highly in the state and nationally in USA Today's annual ranking of the nation's top high school sports teams. In 2008, Liberty High School won the AAAA-level Pennsylvania state football championship, was ranked second in the Eastern United States and 20th among all high schools nationally. In 2002, Parkland High School won the AAAA-level Pennsylvania state football championship, was ranked fifth in the East, and 11th among all high schools nationally. In 2007, Parkland High School also appeared in the AAAA-level Pennsylvania state football championship finals, where they lost to Pittsburgh Central Catholic. In 2008, Liberty High School won the AAAA-level state football championship, defeating Bethel Park High School. Liberty also appeared in the AAAA state finals in 2005 and 2006, but lost. In 2010, Allentown Central Catholic High School won the AAA-level Pennsylvania state football championship, and was ranked fifth on the East Coast. They were also ranked in the top 50 nationally, according to maxpreps.com.
High schools currently in the LVC were dominant in local football prior to the conference's formation. Bethlehem Catholic High School won state championships in 1988 and 1990. Allentown Central Catholic High School won the AAA-class state title in 1993, 1998, and 2010. In 1993, Allentown Central Catholic was ranked tenth among all high schools nationally.
The conference also has been particularly successful in generating players who graduate from high school and go on to prove extremely successful at the collegiate and NFL levels.
To date, 18 alumni of Lehigh Valley Conference schools have gone on to play professionally in the NFL. Among them, Chuck Bednarik of Bethlehem High School was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the highest honor afforded an NFL player, following his 1961 retirement from the Philadelphia Eagles. Bednarik's tackle of Frank Gifford, then a running back with the New York Giants, on November 20, 1960, is widely known as The Hit and is routinely ranked as one of the hardest hits and best plays in NFL history.

Girls field hockey

The Lehigh Valley Conference was recognized nationally as one of the premier leagues in the nation for girls field hockey. In 2010, the national sports web site, topofthecircle.com, ranked Emmaus High School as the best girls field hockey team in the nation for the third time in the program's history. Since its inception, close to 200 members of the Emmaus High School girls field hockey team have gone on to compete on the collegiate level. Emmaus High School has won the Pennsylvania state championship in girls field hockey 10 times and won the District XI title in 22 consecutive seasons, as of 2010.

Wrestling

The Lehigh Valley Conference is also recognized nationally for its hugely successful wrestling programs, which are widely considered to be among the most competitive and elite in the nation. Easton Area High School, Nazareth Area High School, Northampton Area High School, and other Lehigh Valley Conference high schools are regularly ranked among the best in the nation, and many Lehigh Valley Conference wrestling teams are invited to participate in the nation's most competive national tournaments. Lehigh Valley Conference wrestling matches, especially those between rival Lehigh Valley Conference high schools, are among the Lehigh Valley's most popular athletic events, often selling out large indoor high school arenas with thousands of spectators. LVC schools have won numerous PIAA state individual wrestling championships and six team championships, including three straight 2A team titles for Bethlehem Catholic High School between 2010 and 2013.
A sign of its national stature, at one time in the early 2000s, the National High School Coaches Association simultaneously ranked Easton Area High School, Nazareth Area High School, and Northampton Area High School in their "National Top 25" rankings of the nation's best high school wrestling teams. Individual wrestlers from Lehigh Valley Conference schools are often a fixture in national rankings, and collegiate wrestling scouts from around the nation recruit heavily among Lehigh Valley Conference wrestling teams. Division I collegiate wrestling is filled with wrestlers from the Lehigh Valley Conference, and the U.S. Olympic wrestling team also has often included wrestlers from the conference. Many Lehigh Valley Conference alumni have gone on to compete in college wrestling. One alumnus, Bobby Weaver from Easton High School, went on to win the gold medal in wrestling at the 1984 Summer Olympics.
Lehigh Valley Conference high school wrestling was televised locally on Service Electric, WLVT-TV and other radio and television stations.

Lehigh Valley Conference professional and Olympic athletes

Current and former professional and Olympic athletes who played high school athletics at the schools currently comprising the Lehigh Valley Conference include: