The coolest high school sports league names in America

We've spent plenty of time here at MaxPreps looking at some of the coolest mascot names around the country, some of the best stadiums in the country and even some of the best haircuts in prep football.

Now it's time to take a look at something that has been overlooked: The coolest league/conference names.

Some states like the simplicity of placing teams in numbered districts because it's a uniform procedure that treats every group of schools the same. Like Texas, for example, which puts teams into leagues like "Class 5A, Region II, District 16."

But then there are the states that have leagues with their own names. Schools are free to call their mini associations pretty much whatever they want, and some have come up with outstanding names that deserve recognition.



Because picking the Top 10 is definitely a subjective task, we have included an extensive list of honorable mention league names to go along with what we think are the Top 10 coolest high school league names. Take a look through the slideshow and learn a little bit about each of our Top 10, then peruse the Honorable Mention candidates.

Did we miss one? Leave a comment and let us know.

MaxPreps Top 10 coolest league names


1. Nuclear Conference - Idaho

This one is the winner in our minds. You could call the Nuclear League powerful, explosive, lethal, fascinating ... the list goes on. And the locals call it "The Nuke" sometimes — even more awesome!

Rather than having us do the talking, let's have the local media tell the story.



Local look: "It is called the Nuclear Conference because of the Idaho National Laboratory in the desert. The laboratory is home to the first nuclear reactor to provide electricity and it built the prototype reactor for the world's first nuclear powered submarine. A later reactor was the first to power a city, Arco, which is the home to the Butte County Pirates, a longtime member of the Nuke that just this year dropped down a classification and out of the league.

The league is best known for its boys basketball programs. It won four straight titles, tying a state record, between 2007-10 and has won seven straight district tournament titles. Since the start of the 2006-07 season, it owns a 78-2 record against its conference opponents.

It is a 2A league in Idaho's six-classification system with 1A Division II being the smallest and 5A the largest. The schools are all small with enrollment ranging from 178-266. And most of the towns are agricultural communities that take a two-week break in the fall for the potato harvest. I should add the Nuke has won six of the past eight state titles in girls basketball also."
- Mike Lycklama, sports writer at the Idaho Falls Post Register (@michaellycklama)

Schools: Firth, Salmon, North Fremont (Ashton), Ririe, West Jefferson (Terreton).


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2. 5280 League - Colorado

It's centered in the Mile High City, so it makes sense why the 5280 League chose that specific number, which represents 5,280 feet, or 1 mile. There aren't very many league names with no letters in them, so this one definitely stands out.



Local look: "The 5280 League is a reference to the altitude of Denver, 5,280 feet. The league is largely Denver metro-area based, comprised of mostly private schools. The teams compete in Class 1A, the Colorado schools with the smallest enrollment numbers. The league has had some playoff success and is riding high this season in boys basketball. League champ Shining Mountain earned the top seed overall for the state tournament."
- Gerry Valerio, MaxPreps senior writer and state association representative (@GerryValerio)

Schools: Denver Jewish Day, Shining Mountain (Boulder), Jim Elliot Christian (Englewood), Community Christian (Northglenn), Belleview Christian (Westminster), Cornerstone Christian Academy (Westminster), Rocky Mountain Lutheran (Denver), Denver Waldorf, Gilpin County (Black Hawk).


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3. Magic Valley Conference - Idaho

With this league name, we would expect the schools' mascots to be lots of Wizards, maybe some rabbits, maybe sorcerers. So where did they decide that this specific valley in southern Idaho is magical? The most common explanation, according to the Twin Falls Times-News, is that irrigation magically transformed the landscape into plentiful crops, or maybe that an old newspaperman coined the term for advertising purposes. According to Wikipedia, dams and canals "magically transformed what had been considered a nearly uninhabitable area into some of the most productive farmland in the northwestern U.S. Many cities and towns in the region were founded between 1900 and 1910 as a direct result of these projects."

Local look: "The Magic Valley Conference isn't really a league anymore for anything other than track and field. It used to be a volleyball and basketball league when Idaho just had one 1A conference. The Twin Falls region is called the Magic Valley, so the name fit since the conference stretched from Sun Valley to Castleford, Malta to Bliss. Only in track and field do they still use the MVC name. Though when you count all the schools in that track and field league, it covers an area about the same size as Connecticut."
- David Bashore, sports editor at the Twin Falls Times-News (@TNBashore)

Schools: Glenns Ferry, Hagerman, Hansen, Raft River (Malta), Shoshone, Bliss, Camas County (Fairfield), Carey, Castleford, Community (Sun Valley), Dietrich, Idaho School for the Deaf & Blind (Gooding), Lighthouse Christian (Twin Falls), Murtaugh, North Valley Academy (Gooding), Richfield.




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4. The Chicago Public League Baseball conferences

What do Andre Dawson, Carlton Fisk, Ernie Banks, Jackie Robinson, Ron Santo, Ryne Sandberg, Sammy Sosa and Theodore Roosevelt "Double Duty" Radcliffe all have in common? Yes, they are all former baseball stars.

But most importantly, they all have individual groups named after them in the Chicago Public League. Dawson, Banks, Santo and Sandberg all starred for the Chicago Cubs. Robinson's inclusion should come without explanation. Fisk played for the White Sox and Sosa played for the Sox and the Cubs. Radcliffe came to Chicago as a teenager and was a Negro Leagues star, retiring in the city as well.

Naming leagues after sports stars is uniquely Chicagoan.

Local look: "It used to go by names like it does in basketball, like Red West, Red South and Red North. And blue, and green. (The current baseball naming format) certainly wasn't in existence in 2001 when I retired."
- Taylor Bell, retired preps editor at the Chicago Sun-Times

Schools: Too many to list.




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5. Corn Bowl Conference - Iowa

You can make a bowl full of corn in just about any part of the United States. Just go to the grocery store. But in some parts of Iowa, you can just walk outside and pick some of your own corn and make the freshest corn bowl possible. It's a great league name based off the area's premier crop, and it's got a nice alliteration to it as well.

Local look: "The Corn Bowl Conference is an eight-team league in northern Iowa featuring rural, farming communities. The school districts in the conference are made up of multiple small towns, most of which are less than 1,000 in population. The best idea of how many towns it takes to form a district now is by looking at West Fork -- the combination of Rockwell, Swaledale, Sheffield, Chapin, Meservey and Thornton. It used to be a big rivalry when Rockwell-Swaledale played S-C/M-T, but now the districts have merged. It's known for West Fork's dominant boys basketball program, which won the 2011 Class 2A state title and was the runner-up in 2013 and produced current Northern Iowa Panther Seth Tuttle."
- Jared Patterson, sports supervisor at the Globe Gazette in Mason City, Iowa (Facebook)

Schools: West Fork (Sheffield), North Butler (Greene), Northwood-Kensett (Northwood), Nashua-Plainfield (Nashua), Rockford, St. Ansgar, Central Springs (Manly), Riceville.


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6. Lucky Seven Conference - Oklahoma

A cliche says that it is sometimes better to be lucky than good. And of all the numbers out there, seven is probably the luckiest around. So they certainly picked a good one up there in the northeastern reaches of Oklahoma.



Local look: "The Lucky 7 Conference is one of the oldest high school conferences in the state of Oklahoma, dating back to the 1910s. 1948 would have been a good year to have caught a Lucky 7 football game. Mickey Mantle was at Commerce, Tommy Hudspeth at Afton and F.A. Dry at Fairland. The Lucky 7 was one of the first conferences in the state to make the transition from 6-on-6 to the 5-on-5 game (in basketball). (As for the name), I wish I had a snappy idea. I really don't have a clue unless there originally were seven teams and they felt lucky. I checked a county history book and it didn't make reference. This really has my curiosity up!"
- Jim Ellis, sports editor at the Miami News-Record (@mnrsportsguy)

Schools: Ketchum, Oklahoma Union (South Coffeyville), Quapaw, Fairland, Foyil, Welch, Wyandotte, Afton, Commerce, Bluejacket, Colcord, South Coffeyville.


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7. War Eagle Conference - Iowa

Don't think about Auburn University football when it comes to the War Eagle Conference. Not even close. It has nothing to do with the battle cry of the college football team. Rather than having us tell the story, local newspaperman Terry Hersom says it perfectly.

Local look: "The War Eagle Conference is a high school league in our circulation area that derives its name from a former Sioux Indian chief. There is a monument to War Eagle here in Sioux City. Don't know much else about why the conference adopted the name, just that it's got historical ties, much like the Sioux tribe has to Sioux City and many other communities and schools in Northwest Iowa."
- Terry Hersom, sports editor at the Sioux City Journal (@TerryHersom)

Schools: Hinton, Unity Christian (Orange City), West Sioux (Hawarden), Gehlen Catholic (Le Mars), South O'Brien (Paullina), St. Mary's (Remsen), Remsen-Union (Remsen), Akron-Westfield (Akron), Spalding Catholic (Granville), Marcus-Meriden-Cleghorn (Marcus).


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8. ShowMe Conference - Missouri

Maybe it came from a politician saying that words aren't worth much. Maybe it was inexperienced miners. Regardless, Missouri is the ShowMe State and one particular conference took the state's unofficial nickname and ran with it. Even the Missouri Secretary of State doesn't know the exact origin.



Local look: "No one seems to know for sure just how Missouri received the label, the ‘ShowMe’ State. But it is fitting that the centrally located ShowMe Conference adopted the nickname of the state it competes in. Aligned diagonally from northeast to southwest of Jefferson City (Missouri’s capital), the nine-school conference ... is a cluster of small to mid
range schools, and competes in Missouri Classes 1, 2 and 3. Although the nine rural schools are located within reasonable driving distance from one another, Chamois and Tuscumbia travel nearly 140 miles round trip in their quest to compete against one another."
- Dean Backes, MaxPreps freelance writer based in Missouri (Facebook)

Schools: Fatima (Westphalia), St. Elizabeth, South Callaway (Mokane), Linn, New Bloomfield, Russellville, Eugene, Tuscumbia, Chamois.


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9. Blue Chip Conference - Indiana

Larry Bird became a blue chip player over the course of his NBA playing career, from 1979 to 1992. So it makes sense that he played in the Blue Chip Conference. His alma mater, Springs Valley, is no longer in the conference, though. A "blue chip" is defined as "a common stock of a nationally known company whose value and dividends are reliable; typically have high price and low yield."

Local look: "The Blue Chip Conference was formed in the summer of 1968. The conference schools are comprised of small schools in southwestern Indiana. I think you could consider most all the schools as residing in rural southwestern Indiana. The name was a play on words as they considered themselves Blue Chip in the strictest sense of the word. Most all the schools in the Conference are 1A classification. Over the years schools have dropped out and others added and it has been a competitive conference not only in basketball but nearly all sports with the exception of football and soccer."

- Jack Butcher, winningest coach in Indiana history and Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame member. He coached Loogootee for 45 years, with four unbeaten seasons and seven regional titles to go with a 806-250 record.



Schools: South Knox (Vincennes), Vincennes Rivet (Vincennes), North Knox (Bicknell), Wood Memorial (Oakland City), Barr-Reeve (Montgomery), Washington Catholic, Shoals, Northeast Dubois, Loogootee.


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10. Bootheel Conference - Missouri

Part of a shoe is a cool league name? Absolutely. We love the creativity in the Bootheel name, and the story of why this part of Missouri isn't instead in Arkansas.

Local look:  "Located in the extreme southeast corner of Missouri, which takes the shape of a bootheel in comparison to the rest of the state, the Bootheel Conference has been battling conference and nonconference foes since garnering its present day moniker in March of 1958. The rural eight-school league is formerly known as the Pemiscot County High School Athletics Association. All eight schools are in relatively close proximity of each other with South Pemiscot and Malden making the longest trek of 48 miles one way."
- Dean Backes, MaxPreps freelance writer based in Missouri (Facebook)

Schools: Campbell, Kennett, Senath-Hornersville (Senath), Portageville, Hayti, Caruthersville, Malden, South Pemiscot (Steele), .

Continue after the map to see the honorable mention leagues




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HONORABLE MENTION
Alaska
Northern Lights - Also known as the aurora borealis, it's a light show that occurs when charged particles meet atoms in the high altitudes (longitude-wise). Located in mostly southern Alaska, but there is another Northern Lights in Michigan, on the northern peninsula.

Golden Heart - Fairbanks is the Golden Heart City. Most teams are located in the state's interior, where Fairbanks is the major city.

California
Mother Lode - Teams in this Sac-Joaquin Section league in the Sierra Nevada foothills are located along the belt of land that produces massive amounts of gold, the focal point of the Gold Rush that helped build the state.

Golden Empire - Similar to the Mother Lode, the Golden Empire is another Sac-Joaquin Section league. It's title banners feature a miner panning for gold.

San Andreas - This Southern Section league is a likely reference to the world-famous San Andreas Fault, where many an earthquake has developed.



Monticello Empire - This Sac-Joaquin Section league is located south of the Monticello Dam, which holds back Lake Berryessa, one of the state's largest man-made lakes. The town of Monticello was covered by the new lake.

Citrus Belt - Those sunny Southern California days produce oranges, lemons, limes and more. These schools located east of Los Angeles are right in the thick of it.

Agape - Agape is defined as a love that is qualified as spiritual, and this league of Southern Section teams from the high desert east of Los Angeles are all parochial schools.

Majestic - Grand or lofty, according to the dictionary. A well-worded way to show superiority with a league name.

Sunshine - Just like the Citrus Belt, it's all about the sunshine in SoCal.

Delaware
Blue Hen - The Blue Hen is the state bird in Delaware and the name also lent itself to Delaware soldiers in the Revolutionary War.

Hawaii
Big Island - The island of Hawaii (technically Hawai'i) is known more commonly as the "Big Island" to locals and tourists alike.



Idaho
Long Pin - Not much online to discern why they chose this name. Let us know!

Sawtooth Central - This one is named after the Sawtooth Range, a set of peaks within the Rocky Mountains that look like the teeth of a saw when you see a panoramic view.

Illinois
Big Shoulders - Lots of Illinois-based businesses and organizations use the Big Shoulders phrase, and it goes back to a poem titled "Chicago" by Carl Sandburg.

Egyptian Illini - The bottom third of Illinois is referred to as Little Egypt, fertile like the Nile Delta in Africa. And the Illini were the tribes living in the upper Mississippi Valley when settlers started appearing in the area.

Indiana
Leagues with Hoosier in them -  The demonym for someone from Indiana is "Hoosier," and there are seven leagues that feature the term: Hoosier, Hoosier Crossroads, Hoosier Heartland, Hoosier Heritage, Hoosier Hills, Mid-Hoosier and Northeast Hoosier.

Duneland - Sand dunes line the shore of Lake Michigan on the northern edge of the state, and there is a national seashore to go along with a state park.

Pocket - Evansville, located on the southwestern tip of the state, is nicknamed the Pocket City because of its position on a bend in the Ohio River. Schools in the league are situated around southwestern Indiana, which in itself is a pocket of the state.



Iowa
Pride of Iowa - Some leagues say they are the best with an adjective. This one just comes right out and says that the whole state is proud of it.

Kansas
Heart of America - Kansas City claims that it is the Heart of America, and Kansas as a state is also worthy of the title. The league isn't exactly in the Kansas City area, but close enough.

Heart of the Plains - This one is pretty much the same as above, though on a smaller scale. They have a covered wagon and a sunflower in the league logo, a huge plus. Anyone who has driven through Kansas knows the plains stretch for hours, maybe even days. Being the Heart of the Plains is a big deal.

Mid-Continent - Well, not quite. The geographic center of North America is commonly known to be Rugby, S.D. Still, Kansas is pretty close.

Wheat State - Yes it is called the Sunflower State. It also is called the Wheat State, though. Wheat isn't the most exciting thing, but you have to admit it makes for a neat league name.

Massachusetts
Mayflower - The Mayflower ship left Spain in 1620 to bring colonists to North America and landed at Plymouth Rock.

Michigan
Greater Thumb - They're not saying their thumb is better than yours. Hold your left hand with the knuckles facing you, and you will see the shape of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Your thumb is where the Greater Thumb Conference exists.

Copper Country - Michigan's Upper Peninsula holds an area that at one point was the world's biggest copper producer. Those days have passed, but teams in the league still pay tribute to the area's history.



Minnesota
Great Polar - Minnesota is way up there latitude-wise, and you can click here to see the history of the Great Polar League, which was also the Polar Bear Conference and Little Seven in the past.

Southern Confederacy - This one is a total mind trick. Southern Confederacy usually elicits memories of how the south tried to secede from the north and then America fell into the Civil War. References to the Confederate States of America are hard to find this far north. But all the schools are located in the southern part of the state, so there's your reason. Here is a site with helmets of the football teams.

7 Star - This one doesn't have an easy explanation. Minnesota is the "North Star State" because it is the farthest north of the contiguous states. The newspaper in Minneapolis is the Star Tribune. The pro hockey team in previous decades was the North Stars. Perhaps it was seven teams and they wanted to play off the North Star theme.

Missouri
Mark Twain - One of the greatest (perhaps the greatest) American novelists was born in Florida, Mo., before moving to Hannibal, Mo., later in his childhood. This league name pays tribute to an American (and local) icon, though the schools in this league are located around Springfield in the south-central part of the state and Twain grew up more in the northeastern part.

ABC - No clue on this one. The basics of anything are the "ABC's" of it, so perhaps this is one of the state's most basic leagues.

New Jersey
Mid-State 38 - For rhyming reasons, it was a good thing a team left after the 2011 football season, because it used to be the Mid-State 39. This is a football-only league, and according to NJ.com it is made up of teams from Hunterdon, Somerset, Union and Warren counties.

New York
Finger Lakes - Eleven fingers? Whoa. That's more than two hands worth. In western New York, there are 11 lakes that are very long but also very narrow, and they are collectively called the Finger Lakes. The Finger Lakes League has an east and a west division, and is part of Section V in New York.

Patroon - Go way back for the origin of this one. Before the United States of America was formed, Dutch colonists in New Netherland (now upstate New York) who owned large tracts of land were called Patroons.



North Carolina
Mega 7 - They could call this one the 7 million conference. Mega is a Greek prefix that means million and also is used in current lexicon to describe something large or massive.

Tarheel - North Carolina is the "Tar Heel" state and a resident of the state can be called a tarheel. Legend has it that the name came up because the state exported tar from its pine forests in its younger days.

Tar-Roanoke - This is the combination of two rivers that are prominent in the northeastern parts of the state.

Ohio
Premier - The Premier Conference's name puts it ahead of all the others in Ohio. Premier means the first in status or importance. This Cleveland-area league might have some big names, but No. 1 in Ohio?

All-American - As an individual, earning All-American honors is the pinnacle. As a conference, it must also be the pinnacle of greatness.

Firelands - When British forces burned whole villages in Connecticut in 1779 and 1781, land was granted to residents of those areas, and it happened to be in present-day Ohio. More specifically, the northern areas of the state.



Oklahoma
66 - The 66 Conference has to be named for historic U.S. Highway 66, since no other explanations have been presented. Schools currently in the conference aren't all on the former route, but a large majority are pretty close to the famous route.

89er - An 89er is a term used to describe those who participated in the Land Run of 1889, when the United States government opened 2 million acres of land to settlers. It was first-come, first-served, and an estimated 50,000 people tried to grab their own little plots of land in the north-central part of the state.

Cottonbelt - The Cotton Belt (known under its two-word name) is predominantly centered in the South, but it does creep into southeastern Oklahoma. It's the part of the country where the soils and climate are best for growing cotton.

Super Seven - Love the alliteration, and we love the "super" adjective.

NOAA - The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has its National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman. Perhaps that is the inspiration.

Will Rogers - He's "Oklahoma's favorite son" and was one of the nation's top stars in the 1920s and 30s. Rogers was an American cowboy and did vaudeville, commentary, humor and motion pictures.

Panhandle 6 - Oklahoma has the most famous panhandle in the nation, though Florida has a claim to it. Regardless, a good league name referencing that narrow strip of land on the state's northwest side.



Oregon
Big Sky - Montana may be know as "Big Sky Country" but eastern Oregon also has its own expanses of high-elevation flat land, which make the sky look quite large.

Lewis & Clark - Captain Meriweather Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark left St. Louis to explore the newly acquired western part of the United States (and unclaimed territory) and they finally found the Pacific Ocean after following the Columbia River, which represents Oregon's north border.

Pennsylvania
Anthracite - The Anthracite League pays tribute to a natural material that grows in the hills of mid-eastern Pennsylvania. The Schuylkill River area was the first in America to extract and use anthracite, a hard coal that burns cleaner than bituminous coal. It costs a lot more than coal, though.

South Dakota
Big Sioux - Most of the schools in this league are located near the Big Sioux River. Putting the word "Big" in front of any name makes a league name cooler, like the Big East or Big Ten. Although we know this is more of a geographical name.

Yellowstone Trail - The Yellowstone Trail was the first transcontinental roadway, and originated in the northern parts of South Dakota. Roughly you could say it followed the path of U.S. Highway 12 in South Dakota.

All Nations - Teams in this league are located on the Rosebud, Pine Ridge, Cheyenne River and Crow Creek indian reservations.

Virginia
Bull Run - There were two battles named "Bull Run" in the American Civil War.



Northern Neck - Virginians call peninsulas necks, and the Northern Neck is the most northerly of the three major necks on the Atlantic coast.

Lonesome Pine - "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" is a literary classic written by John Fox Jr., and it takes place near the Virginia/Kentucky border, and that's where teams from this league reside.

Battlefield - More Civil War references here. Though you could metaphorically say that every league in the nation is a battlefield.

Washington
Caribou Trail - The Caribou Trail stretches from south to north along the eastern portion of the state, which is much less mountainous that the west and center. Fur traders and miners used the trail, which is named after an animal that doesn't live in Washington, but did reach southern British Columbia, Canada, where the trail ends.

West Virginia
Coalfield - Depending on whose stats you look at, West Virgina is either the No. 3 or No. 2 coal-producing state in the nation. A coal field is just what it sounds like, an underground field of coal.

Mountain State - It's the official nickname of the state.

Wisconsin
Dairyland - Wisconsin is No. 2 in the nation in terms of milk production via dairies. And cheese? Well, we all know Wisconsin is famous for that.

Packerland - The Green Bay Packers were named after the Indian Packing Company, the team's first sponsor. The company specialized in packing canned meat. The eastern part of Wisconsin dominates the industry in the state.



Cloverbelt - There are lots of dairies and pastures in Wisconsin, and clovers provide excellent nutrition for cows. Therefore you could say Wisconsin is part of the "Clover Belt" just like Oklahoma is part of the Cotton Belt.

Flyway - Birds the make their migratory trip twice a year and do so over Wisconsin, sometimes stopping in the state for some temporary time.