Editor’s note: This story is the first in a two-part series covering the waves of conference realignment rippling across central Indiana high school sports. More than half of Johnson County’s high schools have left one conference for another (or become independent) within the last two years, including three in just the past few months.
We begin with the latest domino to fall — on Tuesday night, Greenwood made official its expected departure from the Mid-State Conference, accepting an invitation to join the new Hoosier Legends Conference in 2026-27.
Tradition, like any man-made monument, is impervious to the inevitable forces of change.
Greenwood has been a part of the Mid-State Conference since its formation in 1942, remaining in the league as other schools departed after growing too quickly or not growing quickly enough. The Woodmen, faced with the latter problem for several years, finally decided it was time to do something about it.
On Tuesday evening, the Greenwood school board formally accepted an invitation from the fledgling Hoosier Legends Conference, which will begin play in the fall of 2025 with Indian Creek, Beech Grove, Monrovia, Speedway, Triton Central and Tri-West as founding members. Shelbyville, which was invited along with Greenwood in an effort to bring the new league’s membership to eight schools, got approval from its school board last week.
The Woodmen plan to officially move into their new home after the 2025-26 school year.
“We certainly look forward to the move to the HLC,” Greenwood athletic director Mike Campbell said after the motion was passed. “From a competitive balance, from a size standpoint. We’re making this decision not lightly; it’s based on what we feel is best for our kids, and I think that’s what’s always been our guiding principle.”
Though the measure did pass without resistance, several noted during the school board meeting that leaving the Mid-State was a bittersweet decision, but also the right one for the Woodmen at this moment.
“I grew up a Mid-State kid, as some of you have,” superintendent Terry Terhune said in recommending the move, “but I think it’s the right time.”
Board secretary Mike Metzger agreed.
“This is probably the best-case scenario that I’ve personally seen,” he said just prior to the vote. “It’s more than just winning and losing games or competitiveness — but logistics, ticket sales. There’s a whole slew of things that create a bigger-picture business aspect of operating sports. … I was quite impressed when I saw what was offered.”
“It makes sense on a lot of different fronts,” board president Chris Zaborowsky added.
The HLC sprouted from the public schools in the Indiana Crossroads Conference — Beech Grove, Monrovia, Speedway and Triton Central — breaking away from that league to form their own. Greenwood Christian and Heritage Christian will step into that ICC void next fall, forming a sextet of private schools with Cardinal Ritter, Covenant Christian, Indianapolis Lutheran and Scecina.
More than two dozen central Indiana schools have already shifted or announced an intent to shift leagues in the past year — and with Greenwood’s move, the Mid-State becomes the seventh conference to be created or impacted by realignment this year in central Indiana; that number is expected to grow further once the Mid-State replaces the Woodmen with one or more schools.
As Greenwood officials saw it, a conference change had become necessary. It’s the smallest school in the current Mid-State with an enrollment of 1,211 students, with only Martinsville (1,315) and Mooresville (1,398) even particularly close. Perry Meridian (2,359) is almost twice Greenwood’s size, and Whiteland (2,074) is quickly surging in that direction as well. Take the Woodmen out of the equation, and the average enrollment among conference schools is 1,773.
By contrast, Greenwood will be the largest school in the HLC, with fellow new entry Shelbyville (1,093) the only other school over 1,000. Triton Central (468), Monrovia (503) and Speedway (571) all have less than half the bodies that the Woodmen have.
As the other schools in the Mid-State have outpaced Greenwood in enrollment growth, competing for championships has become more and more difficult. A share of the boys basketball crown in 2020 is the school’s lone league title in the last seven years. The Woodmen have never won a conference championship in soccer or swimming and haven’t finished first in some other sports since the 1990s.
There was pushback on the idea from some corners, but the prevailing opinion across the district was that joining the HLC will afford more Greenwood teams a chance to compete for conference titles on a regular basis.
Travel distance was raised as a concern by some, but the difference isn’t as massive as one might think. While the Mid-State is a near-perfect geographic fit, with half of the league’s membership (Franklin, Greenwood, Perry and Whiteland) within 10 miles of each other, bus trips within the HLC won’t exactly be taxing. The average distance from Greenwood to the seven other schools is just over 22 miles, with a mean drive time of about 35 minutes. That’s about the equivalent of a trip to Martinsville or Plainfield.
The move also comes with some pre-existing rivalries — Indian Creek has long been a mainstay on Greenwood schedules, and the two are also set to be sectional opponents for the foreseeable future with the Woodmen having dropped down to Class 3A this year. Beech Grove and Shelbyville have also been regular opponents, and none of the other HLC schools are complete strangers.
Don’t expect the rivalries with Mid-State schools to just vanish, either; Greenwood and Franklin play for a traveling trophy in football, and that series is expected to continue. Franklin AD Bill Doty confirmed his wishes to keep the Woodmen on the schedule across all sports if possible. The Woodmen likely won’t be able to keep Whiteland as a football opponent, with Seymour contracted as a Week 1 nonconference opponent through 2029, but the two will remain active rivals in other sports.
“Great friends, great rivalries in the Mid-State,” Campbell said. “We’ll still want to keep a majority of those schools on our schedules where it fits in our schedules.”
Campbell also noted that the move should cut down on travel costs for nonconference games, since many current road trips to places like Avon or Warren Central could be replaced by games against Mid-State schools. So the travel will likely be a wash in the long run.
And the long run is exactly what Greenwood officials had in mind when making this decision.
“We’re not looking at this move as a two-year move or a five-year move,” Campbell said. “We’ve obviously been committed to the Mid-State for 70, 80 years, so we’re not looking at this as a light commitment to this conference.”
