Shelbyville to join Triton Central in Hoosier Legends Conference

The athletics landscape at Shelbyville High School is rapidly changing.

First, the Indiana High School Athletic Association dropped Shelbyville from Class 4A to Class 3A in its latest realignment cycle. Now, the Golden Bears will end their affiliation with the Hoosier Heritage Conference to join the newly-forming Hoosier Legends Conference that includes Triton Central.

On Wednesday, the Shelbyville Central Schools board approved the move that will involve both high school and middle school athletic programs.

“Anytime you make a decision like this, it’s a long process with a lot of thought going into it. You have to weigh a lot of different things,” said Shelbyville Superintendent Dr. Matt Vance after the board meeting Wednesday. “We mentioned travel time. We mentioned school size. We mentioned locations. We weighed a lot of different things and in the end, we looked at all the factors that played into it. Where we are now as a school. Where we are as a community and see what is the best fit for us.”

The Hoosier Legends Conference kicks off in the fall of 2025 with six schools – the four public schools currently in the Indiana Crossroads Conference: Triton Central, Beech Grove, Monrovia and Speedway, as well as Indian Creek and Tri-West.

Shelbyville is expected to join in the fall of 2026 with an eighth school. Greenwood has been invited but has not yet received school board approval, which is expected next week.

“It’s a tough decision, but at the end of the day when it’s time to really look and say, ‘Do we want to make a move, and if so, what direction do we want to go?’” said Vance. “We feel like at this point in time for us this is a good move and going forward this will be a very good conference to be a part of.”

Of the seven schools now announced for the new conference, Shelbyville will have the largest student enrollment. If Greenwood is approved, it would become the largest school.

Greenwood, Beech Grove, Shelbyville, Indian Creek, Tri-West and Speedway are Class 3A; Triton Central and Monrovia are 2A.

Shelbyville is committed to the Hoosier Heritage Conference through the end of the 2025-2026 school year. Should the HHC find a suitable replacement or allow Shelbyville out of the conference at the end of this school year, the Golden Bears could join the Hoosier Legends Conference in the fall of 2025.  

“I do think, going forward, we have some schools that will grow,” said Vance. “It will be a very competitive conference made up of outstanding school communities that have very good facilities. I think it is a good fit for us going forward.”

The push to leave the Hoosier Heritage Conference is not a new idea within the school system. Former assistant athletic director Kyle Shipp was formulating demographics during his tenure to show how the HHC communities have changed over the last two-plus decades.

Former head football coach Brian Glesing put together a presentation looking at socioeconomic differences in the communities and how Shelbyville was facing an uphill battle against growing school systems. At the time of Glesing’s presentation, Vance expressed no interest in leaving the HHC. Two years later, his stance has changed.

“I’m a fan of the Hoosier Heritage Conference and I think in many ways it has been a very good conference for us,” he said. “Now we have an established conference that is looking for another school and came to us and invited us. We didn’t have that at that time.

“This is an established conference getting started that we think is a good fit for us in many ways. A couple of years ago I didn’t think that would be the right move. I’ve been here for a while now and an established conference invites us that we think would be a good fit for us, sometimes our mind changes a little bit.”

Shelbyville joined the South Central Conference in 1936 and remained there until 1996 when it agreed to join the Hoosier Heritage Conference. The Golden Bears did not have a conference affiliation during the 1996-97 school year, formally joining the HHC in 1997-98.

Triton Central left the Rangeline Conference in 1995 and remained independent for one season before joining the Mid-Hoosier Conference. Triton Central joined the Indiana Crossroads Conference in 2012.

Moving forward, the four private schools currently in the ICC – Lutheran, Cardinal Ritter, Scecina and Covenant Christian – will be joined next fall by Heritage Christian and Greenwood Christian.

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