Gateway-West Central Conference

The Gateway-West Central Conference is an affiliated pair of former high school athletic conferences with their membership concentrated in west central Wisconsin. Competing from 1941 to 1952, all member schools belonged to the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association.

History

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Location of Gateway Conference Members

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Location of West Central Conference Members

The Gateway-West Central Conference was founded in 1941, resulting from a split of the nine-member South Central Conference. Logan High School in La Crosse was not only the largest high school in the conference, it was the most dominant with perennial contenders in multiple sports.^[1] Coupled with being a geographic outlier in west central Wisconsin, the smaller schools to the east (Baraboo, Portage, Reedsburg, Richland Center and Wisconsin Dells) voted to remove Logan from the conference in 1941.^[2] The three closest schools geographically to Logan (Sparta, Tomah and Viroqua) voted with Logan to keep them in the conference, but were outnumbered by a 5-4 margin and formed the Gateway Conference.^[3] Another conference under the same organizational structure was formed by three members of the Gateway (Sparta, Tomah and Viroqua), along with Mauston of the Juneau County League and Westby of the Monroe-Vernon Conference which was called the West Central Conference.^[4]

The two conferences were affiliated but competed for two different championships, and all games played between the three dual members counted in the standings for both leagues. This arrangement lasted until 1947, when the Gateway Conference was dissolved and three of its members (Logan, Sparta and Tomah) joined with Chippewa Falls to form the North Central Conference under the same organizational structure.^[5] Westby also left the West Central Conference as football members to join the new Scenic Central Conference that year.^[6] Two years later, this alignment was scrapped in favor of a return to the original Gateway Conference lineup for the 1949-50 school year.^[7] The Gateway and West Central Conferences continued competition for three more years before both were disbanded in 1952.^[8]

Conference membership history

Gateway/North Central Conference

School	Location	Affiliation	Enrollment	Nickname	Colors	Joined	Left	Conference Joined	Current Conference
La Crosse Logan	La Crosse, WI	Public	738	Rangers		1941[3]	1952 [8]	Independent	Mississippi Valley
Sparta	Sparta, WI	Public	909	Spartans		1941[3]	1952 [8]	South Central	Mississippi Valley
Tomah	Tomah, WI	Public	919	Indians		1941[3]	1952 [8]	South Central	Mississippi Valley
Viroqua	Viroqua, WI	Public	339	Blackhawks		1941,[3] 1949[7]	1947,[5] 1952[8]	South Central	Coulee
Chippewa Falls	Chippewa Falls, WI	Public	1,454	Cardinals		1947[5]	1949[7]	Independent	Big Rivers

West Central Conference

School	Location	Affiliation	Enrollment	Nickname	Colors	Joined	Left	Conference Joined	Current Conference
Mauston	Mauston, WI	Public	474	Golden Eagles		1941[3]	1952 [8]	South Central
Sparta	Sparta, WI	Public	909	Spartans		1941[3]	1952 [8]	South Central	Mississippi Valley
Tomah	Tomah, WI	Public	919	Indians		1941[3]	1952 [8]	South Central	Mississippi Valley
Viroqua	Viroqua, WI	Public	339	Blackhawks		1941[3]	1952 [8]	South Central	Coulee
Westby	Westby, WI	Public	305	Norsemen		1941[3]	1952 [8]	Juneau County	Coulee

Membership timeline

Gateway/North Central Conference

Full members

Football members

West Central Conference

Full members

Football members

List of conference champions

Gateway/North Central Conference

Boys Basketball

School	Quantity	Years
La Crosse Logan	8	1942, 1943, 1944, 1946, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951
Tomah	6	1945, 1946, 1947, 1950, 1951, 1952
Chippewa Falls	0
Sparta	0
Viroqua	0

Football

School	Quantity	Years
La Crosse Logan	3	1948, 1949, 1951
Sparta	1	1948
Tomah	1	1950
Chippewa Falls	0
Viroqua	0

West Central Conference

Boys Basketball

School	Quantity	Years
Tomah	8	1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1950, 1951, 1952
Sparta	2	1942, 1948
Viroqua	2	1949, 1950
Mauston	0
Westby	0

Football

School	Quantity	Years
Tomah	8	1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951
Sparta	3	1942, 1947, 1948
Mauston	1	1947
Viroqua	1	1942
Westby