A Brief History of the Conference

This information was gathered from many sources, including but not limited to, the archives of member schools, past minutes of meetings, conversations with past and present conference athletic directors and other school personnel.

The archives of the charter member schools indicate the existence of a New Jersey Scholastic Girl’s League or West Jersey Field Hockey League and Girl’s Basketball League. In the early years of the conference, girl’s teams did not enjoy the same “championship” recognition as the boys’ teams.

Records indicate that in 1928, there were six charter member schools. Today, of those six schools, five are still active members of the conference. Of those original charter members, two schools, Glassboro (in 1932) and Gloucester City (in 1939) left the conference. However, they made a return to the TCC: Gloucester City in 1955 and Glassboro in 1984. In 1963, Swedesboro became a regional district, named Kingsway Regional High School. Paulsboro left the league in 1932. Merchantville High School entered the league in 1929, remained until 1936, then rejoined the conference for the years 1965 through 1968.

Merchantville closed its doors permanently in 1972. Clayton entered in 1930, then Penns Grove-Carneys Point Regional High School and Salem both in 1932. In 1959 Pennsville Memorial High School became a member and shortly thereafter in 1960, Southern Gloucester County Regional High School (renamed Delsea High School in 2000) became the ninth school in the conference.

In 1976, a new Salem County high school, Arthur P. Schalick, was admitted. Other schools soon entered the conference: Clearview Regional and St. James High Schools in 1983, Glassboro and Williamstown in 1984, Deptford Township and Gloucester Catholic in 1993, and Cumberland Regional in 2000. St. James High School closed its doors in 2000. At this time, the last four schools to enter the league and to bring us to the twenty (20) total schools in 2002 are Gloucester County Institute of Technology, Wildwood, Highland Regional and Overbrook Regional High Schools.

In 2008 Overbrook withdrew from the Tri County Conference to join the Colonial Conference.