Big Eight Conference (Iowa)
The Big Eight Conference was a high school sports league in Iowa for some of the state's largest schools. It started in 1963 when Des Moines North and Des Moines East left the old Big Six to join the Metropolitan Conference. The four remaining members—Fort Dodge, Mason City, and the Waterloo schools—reached out to other big central Iowa schools. Cedar Falls joined from the Northeast Iowa Conference, and Ames, Marshalltown, and Newton joined from the Central Iowa Conference.
The league became the Big Nine in 1972 when Waterloo Central opened. It was renamed back to the Big Eight in 1988 when Waterloo Central, as part of a school district reorganization, was converted to a junior high school.
From the start, the league was very strong. In its first year, member schools won state championships in four of the seven sports at the time. The conference also claimed the first two state titles in 5-on-5 girls’ basketball (the state had earlier sponsored 6-on-6). The boys’ cross country team dominated, winning a state title almost every year from 1964 to 1975, with only one year missing.
The league stayed stable until the late 1980s, when Newton and Ames left to join the Central Iowa Metro League. Soon after, the other members began moving to new leagues. Marshalltown joined the CIML; Cedar Falls, Waterloo East, and Waterloo West joined the Mississippi Valley Conference; and Fort Dodge and Mason City followed Marshalltown, Ames, and Newton to the CIML after initially being declined membership.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 20:42 (CET).