The Granite City Warriors' bid to join the South Seven Conference for the 2019-2020 school year was rejected by conference administrators at a recent meeting.
The athletic program didn't receive the majority vote to join the league that includes Carbondale, Centralia, Cahokia, Mount Vernon, Marion and Althoff. GCHS needed four votes to get into the conference.
Granite City superintendent Jim Greenwald received the news from Marion principal Joey Ohnesorge, the South Seven Conference president, on Friday morning.
“I'm very shocked, very surprised and somewhat disappointed,” Greenwald said.
Last fall, Greenwald started having discussions with Centralia superintendent Chuck Lane about joining the South Seven, which was formed in 1939. On Sept. 26, the Granite City School Board voted 7-0 for the Warriors to make a bid to join the South Seven.
But in order to be an official member of the six-team conference, the Warriors had to get a two-thirds majority vote. They came up one vote short as the final vote was deadlocked at 3-3.
The Warriors will play an independent schedule in '18-19.
“It's tough to get in a conference and it's a process getting out of a conference,” Greenwald said. “Right now, we are declared independents and we move forward.”
Granite City plans to leave the Southwestern Conference after this school year. The Warriors are playing in their 83rd and final season in the SWC, which includes Alton, Belleville East, Belleville West, Collinsville, East St. Louis, Edwardsville and O'Fallon. The school was a charter member of the league that began in 1923.
GCHS' decision to leave the SWC was stemmed from an incident on Feb. 21, 2017, when a gun was found in the stands during a Granite City-East St. Louis boys basketball game that was suspended and never made up.
School officials asked the other SWC schools to improve the safety for athletic events, but all of them declined, leading the Warriors to make the decision on leaving the conference.