League History

The Little Illini Conference is an eight-team league of Illinois public schools located in eastern and east-central Illinois. All schools are members of the Illinois High School Association. The LIC has a rich and evolving history, reflective of the shifting educational and athletic landscape in rural Illinois.

The league formed in 1970 with six charter members: Casey, Marshall, Martinsville, Oblong, Palestine and Cumberland. Casey and Marshall remain members to this day, though Casey consolidated with Westfield to become Casey-Westfield in 1986. The first reported boys champion in LIC annals was Marshall, which won both the regular season and in-season LIC tournament crowns in 1970-71.

St. Elmo was added as the league’s seventh member in 1972 and was the first school to leave the conference in 1983.

The LIC added a lineup of girls sports in 1977-78. Marshall won the first title in basketball in 1978, sweeping both the regular season and in-season tournament championships.

Palestine joined forces with Hutsonville to form co-op teams in 1996. That was also the year the league regained a seventh member when Edwards County joined.

The LIC saw significant growth and restructuring in the early 2000s, notably after the collapse of the North Egypt Conference after 74 years. Red Hill and Lawrenceville both joined in 2001, with another ex-NEC member, Flora, joining in 2003.

Martinsville became the first charter member of the LIC to exit, in 2008.

The following decade would bring about the biggest upheavals in the history of the league. Newton, Olney and Robinson all jumped from the sprawling Apollo Conference to join the LIC in 2012, bringing membership to a record 12 schools. Paris also made the move from the Apollo in 2014, the same year that three other charter members – Oblong, Palestine-Hutsonville, and Cumberland – departed.

Edwards County left in 2016, while Red Hill and Flora exited in 2021, leaving the league with seven members.

Mt. Carmel joined the league in 2021, as the school dealt with the dissolution of the Big Eight Conference, an Indiana league it had been a member of for 16 years. That brought league membership to its current total of eight schools.

The Little Illini Conference stands as the most decorated athletic conference in the entire region. Member schools have compiled an impressive record of 30 state championships and 108 Top 4 finishes in their collective histories in various sports.

Another proud accomplishment is the official league website, littleillini.com. Created by Rob West in 2012 and administered by him for the next 13 years, it was the very first Illinois prep conference website in the region and remains one of a relative few in the state.