Northfield High School Admitted to Big 9 Conference

The Big 9 Conference's executive board voted this morning to admit Northfield High School.

The decision, announced by the Minnesota State High School League on Twitter, comes none too soon for Northfield as schools continue to flee the sinking ship of the Missota Conference.

Northfield had been a member of the Big 9 until the late 1960s, but much has changed in the last 40-plus years.

“When Northfield left the Big 9 there were zero girls sports,” Northfield activities director Tom Graupmann told the Northfield News in March. "Automatically we’ve doubled what we’ve done since the early 1970s.

“We didn’t have nearly as many sports for the boys either. We have a lot more stuff going on now. We’re spending a lot more time on the road than what we did back then, so there are differences between back then and now in sheer travel.”

The Big 9 also accepted Red Wing Wednesday morning into what will now be a 12-team conference.

The average round-trip travel distance for the Raiders to the 11 other schools will be 108.2 miles, the Northfield News calculated.