The Mississippi Athletic Conference (MAC Conference) is a high school athletic conference whose members are located in the Iowa Quad-Cities, plus three other schools in eastern and southeastern Iowa.
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Member schools
There are 10 full members of the Mississippi Athletic Conference. Nine of those schools are in Class 4A and 5A in girls, Iowa's largest enrollment classes. The smallest — Davenport Assumption — is in Class 3A (the second largest among Iowa's four enrollment classes); however, Assumption does play with the Class 4A schools in boys' golf.
Sports
The conference offers the following sports:
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. Also, not all schools field teams in every sport (e.g., North Scott does not have its own swimming teams).
History
The MAC — as it is known to locals — was formed in 1978. Charter members Bettendorf, Clinton and Muscatine had been members of the Mississippi Valley Conference, while Davenport schools Assumption, Central and West were part of the Quad-City Metro Conference. North Scott, which was participating in its first "big school" conference, had been in the Big Bend Conference (along with several smaller schools), and Burlington was not affiliated with any conference. At the time, the conference was known as the "Mississippi Eight."
Davenport North opened its doors in 1985 and was immediately admitted to the newly renamed MAC. Pleasant Valley became a part-time member in 1985, although it didn't compete in football, basketball, wrestling, baseball or softball until 1987 when the school became a full-fledged member.
End of MAC conference for Football
2013 was the last year that the ten schools played each other for Football. The teams were switched to district play in the Fall of 2014 with Pleasant Valley being the last MAC football champions.
Basketball rivalries with Illinois Western Big 6
In December, seven MAC teams — Davenport North, Davenport West, Davenport Central, Davenport Assumption, North Scott, Bettendorf and Pleasant Valley — compete in the annual Genesis PSP Shootout, a competition matching the Iowa schools against six teams from the Illinois Quad-Cities. The Illinois teams are Moline, United Township (of East Moline), Rock Island, Rock Island Alleman, and Galesburg, all representing the Western Big 6 Conference; the other participating teams are Geneseo and Riverdale of Port Byron, Illinois. No champion is crowned, although matchups are generally determined based on pre-season polls and past successes of the competing teams, with the two teams believed to be the "best" in the pre-season polls playing in the last game of the day.
A similar six-game shootout competition for the girls takes place in January at Black Hawk College in Moline; the same six MAC schools compete against the metro Western Big Six schools, plus Geneseo and other schools from western Illinois.
In March, after the conclusion of the state basketball tournaments in Iowa and Illinois, an all-star game consisting of the area's top senior players is played at Augustana College, with seniors from primarily the MAC matched against their counterparts from the Western Big Six. Boys and girls games are played, with an MVP named for each game.