History

History of the Fox River Classic Conference

The Fox River Classic Conference was formed in 2007 and brought together teams from the Fox River Valley Conference (Green Bay East, Green Bay Preble, Green Bay Southwest, Green Bay West,  Manitowoc, Notre Dame, Sheboygan North, and Sheboygan South) and the Bay Conference (Ashwaubenon, Bay Port, De Pere, and Pulaski) to form the 12 team FRCC.  One reason for the formation of the FRCC was the growth in the number of students of the four Bay Conference Schools mentioned and to align them with a conference of similar size schools.   

Timeline:

The conference make-up of the twelve teams mentioned above remained through the 2014-15 school year.  For many sports the conference was split up into two divisions, a North Division (Ashwaubenon, Bay Port, Green Bay Southwest, Green Bay West, Notre Dame and Pulaski) and a South Division (De Pere, Green Bay East, Green Bay Preble, Manitowoc, Sheboygan North and Sheboygan South). Schools did not just compete against their division, they would play across their division, and Conference Championships were determined by results against all conference opponents.  For sports like football, you would not play every team in the conference.  In other sports like basketball you might play some teams twice in conference play, while you would play others only once.  Divisional Championships, although recognized, were not awarded.

• 2015: Green Bay East and Green Bay West left the FRCC and joined the Bay Conference. This brought the FRCC to 10 teams and also eliminated the need for divisional play within the conference.

• 2021: The WIAA instituted football only conferences and Green Bay East and Green Bay West rejoined the FRCC for football only.  Menasha and West De Pere also were added to the conference for football only and the FRCC was split into a North Division (Ashwaubenon, Bay Port, De Pere, Green Bay Preble, Green Bay Southwest, Pulaski and West De Pere) and South Division (Green Bay East, Green Bay West, Manitowoc, Menasha, Notre Dame, Sheboygan North and Sheboygan South) again, for Football only.  A Conference Champion was named for each Division and teams played each team in their division once and played one crossover game against a team from the other division.  The crossover game did not factor into the divisional championship, but it was considered a conference game for the WIAA’s football seeding procedure.

• 2024: Two more teams were added to the football-only North and South Division Football Conferences.  Appleton West joined the North Division and Oshkosh North joined the South Division.  This brought each division to eight teams and eliminated the need for a crossover game to be played during the season.  North and South Division teams today, sometimes schedule a non-conference game against each other to start the season.

• 2025: West De Pere joined the conference as a full member (not just football).  That same year also saw Sheboygan South leave the conference for the newly formed Glacier Lakes Conference.  With West De Pere joining and Sheboygan South leaving, the conference remains at ten teams.  The make-up of the FRCC now includes five former members of the now defunct Fox River Valley Conference (Green Bay Preble, Green Bay Southwest, Manitowoc, Notre Dame and Sheboygan North) and five former members of the Bay Conference (Ashwaubenon, Bay Port, De Pere, Pulaski and West De Pere).

Note:

Of the seven charter members of the Fox River Valley Conference and with the departure of Sheboygan South (Sheboygan was renamed Sheboygan Central and then again renamed Sheboygan South) from the Fox River Classic Conference in 2025, Manitowoc is the last remaining Charter member of that FRVC who is still part of the FRCC.  When looked at as a whole, this  makes Manitowoc a continuous member of the same conference for over 100 years.

FRCC Logo:

The original conference logo was developed by Ashwaubenon HS athletic assistant, Helen Marcks, in 2007. The logo that was created had roman numerals, “XII,” but when GB East and GB West left the conference in 2015, the logo numeral was changed to, “X,”.