Suburban One League

[2] It has also produced some great athletes, including Baseball Hall of Fame member Reggie Jackson.

Early-season standings from that first season, located on page 5 of the January 11, 1923 edition of The Chester Times, confirm that these were the only 11 schools in the basketball league in 1922–23.

In the fall of 1923, the Suburban League added football, though more than a quarter-century would pass before round-robin schedules were attempted.

Almost all of the Suburban League's football champions until after World War II were unofficial, chosen either by a points system or by vote of newspapermen who covered the schools.

In 1948, after a quarter-century of unofficial league play, four of the largest schools - Abington, Chester, Haverford and Lower Merion - agreed to schedule each other, with the winner of the round-robin competition to receive official recognition as Suburban Section A champion.

Abington, Chester and Lower Merion all ended the league season with 2-1 records and were declared tri-champions.

With the blessing of the remaining members, eight schools from Chester and Montgomery counties left to form their own independent association known as the Ches-Mont League.

All that remained of the once mighty Suburban League were ten schools, its smallest membership to date.

The remaining schools retained the Suburban One name, even though the league no longer had a reason to define itself numerically.

The biggest complaint among the newcomers, especially former members of the Bux-Mont League, was the shattering of decades-long traditional rivalries at the altar of alignment by population.

After several years of complaints about the football schedule, the Suburban One League changed to three self-contained divisions in 1991.

But the most significant change was creating a ten-school National Conference for the largest and most competitive schools in the SOL.

It certainly was the most decorated, as four times, the champion of the Suburban One National Conference won the PIAA Class AAAA title.

The Bucks actually won or shared the "Power 10" crown all 10 years of its existence, but many of its league games were tougher than the playoffs.

Meanwhile, the Suburban One League kept the four-division format in most other sports, depending on the number of schools competing.

In all sports, the league chose to realign its divisions every two years, concurrent with the PIAA's two-year reclassification of schools.

A rapid increase in travel costs finally brought an end to alignment strictly by student population in 2007.

The National Conference became the home for the schools and their successors that once comprised the Lower Bucks League, with the addition of Abington.

The Suburban One League has kept this alignment intact in almost all sports since 2007, marking the longest period of stability in its history.

The Suburban One League today is a member of District 1, which is a compilation of other public schools in Chester, Montgomery, Bucks, and Delaware counties.

For football only, the conferences are aligned thusly: National Conference: Abington, Bensalem, Central Bucks South, Neshaminy, North Penn, Pennridge, Pennsbury, Souderton Continental Conference: Central Bucks East, Central Bucks West, Council Rock North, Council Rock South, Harry S. Truman, Norristown, Quakertown, William Tennent American Conference: Cheltenham, Hatboro-Horsham, Plymouth-Whitemarsh, Springfield, Upper Dublin, Upper Merion, Upper Moreland, Wissahickon Suburban One League sports in which every school in the league fields a team - football, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, boys and girls track, golf, field hockey, baseball, softball, boys and girls tennis, and wrestling - will feature the conferences in this alignment starting in the fall of 2016:[3] Every week, SOL officials choose one male and female athlete who excelled that week.

[7] The following is a list of PIAA state champions from the Suburban One League[2] *Before Council Rock Split into North and South in 2002 Perhaps the most important goal of the SOL is for athletes to respect each other, coaches, officials, and the game.

The SOL created the "Code of Conduct" for "the interest of continued good relationships in the field of athletics".

Show their respect for their country by standing attentively and removing hats when the American flag passes and during the playing and singing of the National Anthem.

Show respect for the game officials and refrain from booing their decisions or interfering with their control of the contest.

Recognize that littering premises, throwing of confetti or paper, and tossing objects onto the playing area are unacceptable.