SWAPS Conference


The Southern Wisconsin Association of Private Schools Conference, more commonly known by its abbreviated form, is a former high school athletic conference consisting mostly of private high schools in southern Wisconsin. It was formed in 1957 and disbanded in 1961.

History

The SWAPS Conference was founded in 1957 by five small high schools in southern Wisconsin. Despite the name of the conference, only four of the five original members were private schools. Beloit Catholic and St. Mary's both belonged to the newly created Wisconsin Catholic Interscholastic Athletic Association, and the two military academies did not belong to any sort of larger organization at that time. The fifth member, Wisconsin School for the Deaf, was funded by the state of Wisconsin, and was therefore the only school in the conference's original roster to be eligible for membership in the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association. A second public high school was added in 1958 after the dissolution of the Southern Regional Conference. They were members of the conference for one school year before joining the Southeastern Wisconsin Conference in 1959. The SWAPS Conference was disbanded after the 1960–1961 school year. Only one former member joined another conference for 1961, and the rest became independents before eventually joining other conferences.

Membership timeline


DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:20
Period = from:1957 till:1961
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
PlotArea = right:30 left:0 bottom:50 top:5
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width:13 textcolor:black shift: anchor:from fontsize:m
bar:1 color:tan1 from:1957 till:1961 text:Beloit Catholic
bar:2 color:tan1 from:1957 till:1961 text:Northwestern Military & Naval Academy
bar:3 color:tan1 from:1957 till:1961 text:St. John's Military Academy
bar:4 color:tan1 from:1957 till:1961 text:St. Mary's
bar:5 color:tan1 from:1957 till:1961 text:Wisconsin School for the Deaf
bar:6 color:tan2 from:1958 till:1959 text:Williams Bay

ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:1 start:1957