MISSISSIPPI VALLEY CONFERENCE

The 'Mississippi Valley Conference' (also called MVC) is a high school athletic conference whose members are located in the metro areas of eastern Iowa. Additionally, in Wisconsin, there is an athletic confederation known as the Mississippi Valley Conference too. The Iowa-based conference is divided into two segements: the Mississippi division and the Valley division. At present the MVC comprises all 4A schools with the exception of Cedar Rapids Xavier and Dubuque Wahlert, who are categorized as 3A schools.

Contents

Member Schools

History

Sports

Sources

Member Schools

There are 14 members of the Mississippi Valley Conference:

Institution	Location	Founded	Affiliation	Enrollment	Mascot	Division
Cedar Falls	Cedar Falls	1900	Public	1,164	Tigers	Mississippi
Cedar Rapids Jefferson	Cedar Rapids	1958	Public	1,651	J-Hawks	Valley
Cedar Rapids Kennedy	Cedar Rapids	1967	Public	1,887	Cougars	Valley
Cedar Rapids Washington	Cedar Rapids	1956 (orig. 1875)	Public	1,626	Warriors	Valley
Cedar Rapids Prairie	Cedar Rapids	1954	Public	1,052	Hawks	Mississippi
Cedar Rapids Xavier	Cedar Rapids	1998	Private/Catholic	approx. 700	Saints	Valley
Dubuque Hempstead	Dubuque	1970	Public	1,718	Mustangs	Mississippi
Dubuque Senior	Dubuque	1923	Public	1,551	Rams	Valley
Dubuque Wahlert	Dubuque	1959	Private/Catholic	614	Golden Eagles	Mississippi
Iowa City High	Iowa City	1938	Public	1,526	Little Hawks	Mississippi
Iowa City West	Iowa City	1968	Public	1,838	Trojans	Mississippi
Linn-Mar	Marion	1959	Public	1,249	Lions	Mississippi
Waterloo East	Waterloo	1874	Public	1,298	Trojans	Valley
Waterloo West	Waterloo	????	Public	1,804	Wahawks	Valley

History

Since its founding, the Mississippi Valley Conference was a league composed of metropolitan schools in eastern Iowa. Until 1969, the MVC (as it is known to some locals) also included Quad-City area schools in both Iowa ''and'' Illinois; this list included Davenport High (since 1960, Davenport Central) and Davenport West in Iowa; and Illinois Quad-City area schools East Moline (now United Township), Moline and Rock Island. Clinton High School was also a member of the conference, as were Jefferson and Washington of Cedar Rapids, Iowa City High and Dubuque Senior (known for years simply as Dubuque). Cedar Rapids Kennedy joined immediately upon its opening in 1967.
The league was reorganized in 1969, with the five Quad-City area schools leaving to form a new league (the Quad-City Metro Conference, along with Catholic schools Davenport Assumption and Rock Island Alleman). The six remaining schools were joined by newcomers Bettendorf, Muscatine and Iowa City West (the latter which opened in 1968). Early in 1970, the newly opened Dubuque Hempstead was admitted to the conference. One member - Muscatine - gained infamy during the 1970s when it lost 44 consecutive football games, including 40 straight league games between 1973 and 1977.¹
The league reorganized again in 1978 when Bettendorf, Clinton and Muscatine left to join the newly formed Mississippi Athletic Conference; Dubuque Wahlert joined at that time to make the MVC an eight-team conference.
Since the 1980s, the MVC's membership has grown and has been at its current 14-school membership since the mid-1990s. The most recent additions have been Waterloo East, Waterloo West, Cedar Falls, and Cedar Rapids Regis in 1992. Regis joined the conference at the beginning of the 1992-1993 school year and was subsequently closed and merged with Cedar Rapids LaSalle High School to form Cedar Rapids Xavier High School.

Sports

The conference offers the following sports:

★ 'Fall' — Football, volleyball, boys' cross-country, girls' cross-country, boys' golf and girls' swimming.

★ 'Winter' — Boys' basketball, girls' basketball, bowling, wrestling and boys' swimming.

★ 'Spring' — Boys' track and field, girls' track and field, boys' soccer, girls' soccer, boys' tennis, girls' tennis and girls' golf.

★ 'Summer' — Baseball and softball.
Although the member schools field freshman — and in some cases, junior varsity — teams in many of the above-mentioned sports, conference championships are determined at sophomore and varsity levels only.

Sources

★ ¹"Thank God it's over!" Sports article from the ''Muscatine Journal'', September 10, 1978.