Nine schools form Chicagoland Christian Conference, will compete in 2023-24 school year

The shifting of members from the 13-member Metro Suburban Conference prompted some of the other member schools to consider options for their future.

That future now will be in the newly formed Chicagoland Christian Conference, a nine-team league with six current MSC schools and three others from outside that will begin play in the 2023-24 school year.

Marian Central, Christ the King and Chicago Hope Academy will join current MSC members Aurora Christian, Bishop McNamara, Chicago Christian, St. Edward, Timothy Christian and Wheaton Academy in the CCC. It will be for all sports, although Timothy Christian does not play football.

The new conference was announced Friday morning in a news release. Marian Central, with a 557 enrollment, eagerly jumped at the chance to join a conference better aligned with its enrollment. The Hurricanes had a difficult time in recent years competing in the East Suburban Catholic Conference, where six of the other schools had twice its enrollment.

Marian is leaving the ESCC and will compete as an independent school in 2022-23.

“My main job is to make sure anything our student-athletes and coaches are doing is a good fit for them,” Hurricanes athletic director Curtis Price said. “That’s my job, to make sure our kids are having a great experience when they’re competing in their sports. Over the last few years, I felt that the kids and our coaches were not enjoying their experience while competing.

“It was my job to try to find something that can create that and I feel like moving to this new conference will do that for them.”

For Marian, the northern-most school in the CCC, the travel will not vary much from what it does in the ESCC. Marian will be the second-largest school to Wheaton Academy (655) in the CCC, which will have seven schools ranging from 240 to 361 in enrollment.

“Now, when our kids and our coaches get on a bus, they’ll feel like they’ll have a chance to go out and compete,” Price said. “We don’t know a whole lot about some of these schools, but against some of them we have played good competitive games.”

Aurora Central Catholic, IC Catholic and St. Francis are leaving the MSC to join the Chicago Catholic League for all sports in 2023-24. Rosary, an all-girls school and MSC member, will join the Girls Catholic Athletic Conference that year.

The MSC will keep its two six-team divisions for football this fall.

“It became evident that we were going in different directions,” Wheaton Academy AD Brad Byrne said. “It kind of forced us to look elsewhere. We felt if we could get it to eight that would be good. We reached out to Christ the King and Hope. We heard Marian might be leaving the ESCC. We knew we could put together a pretty competitive conference.”

Riverside-Brookfield AD Brendan Curtin said the four remaining MSC schools – R-B, Ridgewood, Elmwood Park and Westmont – will remain together and keep options open to expand that conference from four teams.

“We’ve enjoyed our time in the Metro, it was good for us there,” Timothy Christian AD Jack LeGrand said. “But we’re excited to get with some similar schools as well as some new schools, some other faith-based schools that we’re going to compete with.

“We’ll see how it all develops. Anytime you start something you don’t know what to expect completely. Conference-wise, it looks like all the schools will be really competitive, it’s going to be pretty good. We’re going to have good competitive games most nights in all our sports.”

Marian’s football team has been competitive and playoff-caliber in recent seasons, but the Hurricanes’ last playoff appearance was 2017. Their last two full seasons, they finished 4-5 and missed the playoffs by one win.

The Hurricanes won their CCL-ESCC Red Division last season, but there were only three teams. They faced Class 5A state champ Fenwick and 7A runner-up St. Rita during their crossover games.

“That’s a welcome add for us. Enrollment-wise and with team numbers, it’s a fit for our size,” Marian football coach Darren Fortin said. “In football, we were pretty competitive every year, we just couldn’t get to that fifth win. Overall, looking at who we’ll be playing, size-wise, they’re all with us.

“We all looked forward to the challenges in the ESCC. It was a good, competitive conference for us. It’s a good move for us, fit-wise, for all of our sports.”