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The Western Indiana Conference is the name of two IHSAA-sanctioned conferences based in West Central Indiana. The first formed as an eight-team league that formed as a basketball league in 1944 as the West Central Conference. The league started expanding in 1945 and changed its name to the Western Indiana Conference. With consolidation forcing many membership changes in the 1970s (including all the Terre Haute public schools), the conference folded at four members in 1983.
The second incarnation started in 1999, including four previous members (or their current incarnations) from the old conference, and three other schools from South Central Indiana. Its only change in membership in its first 16 years was in football, where South Vermilion played independently for the 2007 and 2008 seasons before rejoining the conference. March 2014 marked a sea change for the conference, as what originally was an invite for Greencastle turned into inviting the remaining five teams of the West Central Conference to join. All seven WIC schools and all five WCC schools voted to expand the conference into 2015, making a 12 team, two division league.
Old Conference Membership
- Linton-Stockton played concurrentily in the WIC and the SIAC from 1944 to 1951.
- State played concurrently in the WIC and the Tri-River Conference from 1964 to 1978.
- South Vermillion was known as Clinton until 1977. The smaller schools in southern Vermillion County had consolidated into Clinton by 1963, but the school did not change its name right away (and kept Clinton's school colors and nickname), so this is considered a name change rather than an actual consolidation of schools.
- Sullivan played concurrently in the WIC and the SIAC from 1944 to 1962.
- Schulte played concurrently in the WIC and the Tri-River from 1964 to 1977.