Chicago Catholic League

Member schools

St. Joseph High School joined the conference in 2011. Lake Forest Academy joined the conference for football only in 2011. St.Viator High School joined in 2010 to compete in the conference for lacrosse. Additionally, St. Patrick High School, Notre Dame High School, and Marist High School participate in the conference for Boys Bowling.

For those schools which are coed, most of the girls teams compete in the Girls Catholic Athletic Conference. The girls teams from Bishop McNamara, Fenwick, and Providence compete in the East Suburban Catholic Conference.

Holy Trinity (Tigers) (1443 W. Division St) was also a Catholic League team. Last Catholic League season for football was 1965.

History

The Chicago Catholic League was formed in 1912 as a way to give the all-male Catholic schools of the area interscholastic competition. The move to form the league was precipitated when the dominant high school league in the metropolitan area, the Cook County High School League, delayed the application of St. Ignatius Academy and DePaul Academy. Representatives of eight schools met at the Great Northern Hotel—De Paul Academy, St Ignatius Academy, St Rita College, St. Cyril College (which would become Mount Carmel High School), Cathedral High, St. Philip High, Loyola Academy, and De La Salle Institute — but could not get together on the particulars to form a football–only league.

In the third week of November, the schools managed to form a league and drew up a schedule of games in basketball and indoor baseball. The founding members of the league were St. Stanislaus, De la Salle, De Paul, St. Ignatius, St. Cyril, St. Philip, Loyola, and Cathedral. By the spring when a baseball schedule was drawn up, Holy Trinity had joined the league, but Cathedral dropped out, leaving an eight-team circuit. In the fall of 1913, the league introduced football. By the following year, league champion De Paul, felt feisty enough to invite St. John’s Preparatory from Danvers, Massachusetts, to Chicago to engage in an intersectional contest. De Paul narrowly lost the game, but it demonstrated to the league that its program was thriving. Two years later De Paul traveled to Boston and met Beverly High in Fenway Park, destroying the team 30-7. More schools joined the circuit before the decade was up, St. Patrick in 1913, and St. Mel in 1918.

Because the Catholic school population relative to the mainstream public secondary schools and the private school was more an immigrant and working class population, the sports that the league initially sponsored reflected this demographic makeup. For example, during the first four years of the league’s existence, only baseball, basketball, indoor baseball, and football were offered. Basketball was the most robust sport, as the league not only provided for heavyweight and lightweight schedules, but also bantamweight (added in 1919) and flyweight competition (added in the early 1920s). The Chicago Public High School League and Suburban League offered basketball only in the heavyweight and lightweight classes, after experimenting only a few years with a bantamweight class.

The Catholic League added track and field in 1917, but it was not until 1924 that three “country club” sports were added to the league’s schedule golf, tennis, and swimming. The addition of these sports brought the league up to the level of offerings by the Chicago and Suburban public leagues. The 1920s also saw the addition of more schools to the league—St. George, Joliet De la Salle, and Fenwick.

Some working class sports that had great appeal in some Catholic schools were boxing and bowling, and the league sponsored competition for a few years during the Depression in boxing, and much longer in bowling.

By the late 1950s some of the Catholic League members were growing restive, wanting to participate in the state tournaments sponsored by the Illinois High School Association (IHSA). The four Christian Brothers schools – De La Salle, St. George, St. Mel and St. Patrick – withdrew from the Catholic League and joined the IHSA upon its formation of the Chicagoland Prep League (CPL) on 27 February 1961. St. Ignatius would defect to the CPL two years later on 9 April 1963.

The Catholic League finally joined the IHSA in 1974, and eventually saw the return of St. Ignatius, St. Patrick, and De La Salle into the league. Because of their membership in the IHSA, the 29-year-old tradition of a Catholic League All-Star basketball game ended in 1974. In the beginning of 1996 the CCL and the East Suburban Catholic Conference and other Catholic high schools decided to make a super catholic conference. They called it the Chicago Metropolitan Conference. Every school from the East Suburban was in the conference except Nazareth Academy and Marian Central Catholic. This conference ended in the 2002–2003 season and both conferences went back to normal. Swimming and water polo founded the Metro Catholic Aquatic Conference in 1999 which included the all East Suburban Catholic and CCL teams and still hosts a conference championship for both sports. The MCAC won every state title in water polo from 1974 to 2011.

Past members

Baseball

State champions

Basketball

Prior to the 2007–2008 season, the state basketball title was contested in two classes. Since then, it is contested in four classes.

State champions

The 2004–05 Class A title was stripped from Hales Franciscan after it was determined that the school had not been approved by the Illinois State Board of Education between 2003 and 2005.

Football

The Chicago Catholic League is divided into Blue, White, and Green divisions. The Blue includes Brother Rice, Loyola, Mount Carmel, St. Rita, and Providence. The White includes DeLaSalle, St. Ignatius, Bishop McNamara, (Burbank) St. Laurence, Gordon Tech, Seton Academy, Hales Franciscan, and Leo.

From 1980 to 2000, Class 6A was the largest (by school population) class in Illinois high school football. Class 7A and 8A were added in 2001. From 1974–79, Class 5A was the class for the largest schools.

State champions

Prep Bowl

The Prep Bowl is an annual contest played between the Chicago Catholic League and the Chicago Public League and is played at Chicago's Soldier Field. It was first played in 1927, though after a forfeit in 1928, was not played again until 1933, and was the premier high school football event in Illinois until the IHSA formed the state championship football playoffs in 1974. The 1927 game between Mt. Carmel and Carl Schurz High School drew an estimated 50,000 fans; the largest crowd to see a prep football contest in American history, up to that time. In subsequent years, larger crowds were drawn to the annual game.

With the advent of the IHSA state series, the Prep Bowl was contested by the winner of a special playoff in each league played by teams not qualifying for the state playoffs, and teams that were eliminated in early rounds of the state playoffs. It is traditionally played on the Friday after Thanksgiving, which is the same day which the IHSA plays its smaller school state championships in football. As of the 2009 game, the Catholic League holds a 51–23–2 advantage in the series.

In 1981, the IHSA membership voted on a limitation that prohibited member schools from participating in more than nine games, plus the IHSA state series. The Prep Bowl was given a special exemption from this.

Golf

State champions

Swimming and diving

State champions

Track and field

State Champions

Water polo

The IHSA began a state series in water polo with the 2001–02 school year. Prior to that, a high school state championship was sponsored by Illinois Water Polo. There was no Championship Game in 1979 as Water Polo switched from a Fall to a Spring sport.
State Champions
ISA State Champions

IHSA State Champions

Wrestling

State Champions

Notable alumni

Bishop McNamara

Brother Rice

DeLaSalle

DePaul Academy

Fenwick

Gordon Tech

Hales Franciscan

Holy Cross

Leo

Loyola Academy

Mount Carmel

St. George

St. Ignatius

St. Laurence

St. Mel

St. Rita

Providence Catholic

Weber