Marawood Conference

The Marawood Conference is a high school athletic conference with its membership concentrated in north central Wisconsin. It was founded in 1949 and all member schools are affiliated with the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association.

The Marawood Conference was founded in 1949 by seven small high schools in north central Wisconsin: Athens, Auburndale, Edgar, Marathon, Pittsville, Rudolph, and Startford.^[1] These schools were all former members of the Marathon County League (1928-1949) and Wood County League (1925-1942), and the name of the conference reflects the location of its original member schools. Membership remained consistent through the first thirteen years of the conference's history, with the first changes coming in 1962. Rudolph High School closed and was consolidated into Wisconsin Rapids,^[2] and two schools (Granton and Spencer) joined after the dissolution of the 3-C Conference.^[3] The conference sponsored their first football league for the 1964 season, and five schools (Auburndale, Edgar, Pittsville, Spencer and Stratford) were part of the inaugural roster.^[4][5] Abbotsford moved over from the Cloverbelt Conference in 1966,^[6] increasing the roster to nine schools. That number jumped to eleven in 1970 when two schools who were displaced by their conferences disbanding entered: Nekoosa from the Vacationland Conference and Rib Lake from the Flambeau League.^[7]

Granton left to join the Central State Conference in 1972,^[8] bringing membership back down to ten schools. They would rejoin in 1976,^[9] replacing the departing Auburndale and Nekoosa, who both moved on to the Lumberjack Conference. Two years later, Prentice would join from the Lakeland Conference,^[10] and the conference's stable would stay intact for just over two decades until three new schools were added in 2000: Assumption in Wisconsin Rapids, Columbus Catholic in Marshfield, and Newman Catholic in Wausau.^[11] These schools were recent additions to the WIAA after the merger with WISAA, and all were previously members of the Central Wisconsin Catholic Conference. Auburndale would also reenter the Marawood Conference that year,^[12] and a fifteenth member school would join in 2005 (Northland Lutheran in Kronenwetter).^[13] The Marawood Conference would split into North and South Divisions to accommodate the recent expansion:

In 2008, Park Falls and Phillips joined the Marawood Conference after the Lumberjack Conference ceased operations.^[14] They joined the North Division, with Edgar, Marathon and Newman Catholic moving to the South Division. These three schools replaced Columbus Catholic, Granton and Spencer, all of whom joined the Cloverbelt Conference.^[15] In 2009, Park Falls was merged with Glidden of the Indianhead Conference to form Chequamegon,^[16] who inherited Park Falls' Marawood Conference membership. Divisional alignment remained intact for the next five years before Edgar was moved back to the North Division.^[17] This lasted for three years before moving back to the South Division to replace two schools that left to join the Central Wisconsin Conference: Northland Lutheran and Pittsville.^[18] Currently, the Marawood Conference has twelve members in the following alignment:

In 2008, the Marawood Conference lost five football-playing members: Spencer/Columbus to the Cloverbelt Conference and four schools (Abbotsford, Assumption, Athens and Newman Catholic) to the new Cloverwood Conference, a partnership between the four Marawood and six schools affiliated with the Cloverbelt.^[19] This arrangement lasted through the 2019 season, around the same time a comprehensive realignment plan was released by the WIAA and Wisconsin Football Coaches Association to begin with the 2020 season and run on a two-year realignment cycle.^[20] Five full Marawood members (Abbotsford, Athens, Auburndale, Edgar and Marathon) were joined by three Cloverbelt schools (Colby, Owen-Withee and Thorp) to form the 2020-2021 roster.^[21] Before the 2021 season could begin, three schools (Athens, Owen-Withee and Thorp) decided to transition to eight-player football and left the conference, with their games counting as losses by forfeit in the standings. For the 2022-2023 compeittion cycle, Pittsville joined the remaining five schools from the 2021 season and the Marawood formed a scheduling alliance with the Central Wisconsin Conference's small-school division.^[22] In 2024, the Marawood Conference lost two members (Colby and Marathon) to the Central Wisconsin Conference's large-school division, replacing them with three schools from the CWC's small-school division (Iola-Scandinavia, Pacelli and Rosholt) and full members Assumption.^[23] This alignment is set to remain in place until the 2026-2027 realignment cycle, when Assumption and Rosholt switch to eight-player football,^[24] and the Loyal/Greenwood football cooperative set to join as their replacements.^[25]

 North Division  South Division

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• Marawood Conference (official website)