Northern Ohio Conference unveils logo

BELLEVUE — The Northern Ohio Conference unveiled its logo for the new league, set to begin next school year, after a meeting of high school principals and athletic directors on Nov. 12 at the Bellevue Athletic Fieldhouse. The league's official logo has "NOC" in red letters with a white border in an outline of the state of Ohio, complete with a star at the top and fully spelling out "Northern Ohio Conference" across the bottom. The official announcement of the new league was on May 7. The league will consist of the current 10 schools that make up the Lake and Bay divisions in football within the Sandusky Bay Conference. The current Lake Division consists of Clyde, Columbian, Norwalk, Perkins and Sandusky. The Bay teams in football are Bellevue, Edison, Huron, Port Clinton and Vermilion. The league is expected to keep a two-division format and the same Lake and Bay names. Steyer said Northern Ohio Conference was chosen from a list of 15-to-20 names. Some other NOC sports will have only one division. The Northern Ohio Conference will begin competition in the 2026-27 school year and will include 22 varsity sports. The league name features two variations of Norwalk High School's previous two athletic leagues that date back more than 80 years. From the fall of 1944 through the 2016-17 school year, Norwalk was a member of the defunct Northern Ohio League. The NOL remained the same eight schools from 1954-2002 with Bellevue, Bucyrus, Galion, Norwalk, Tiffin Columbian, Shelby, Willard and Upper Sandusky. Bucyrus left following the 2001-02 school year and was replaced by Fostoria. After the 2010-11 school year, Fostoria went to the Northern Buckeye Conference, while Galion and Upper Sandusky went to the North Central Conference, which later became the Northern 10 after the 2013-14 school year. Sandusky then joined the NOL after 2011, and Ontario came in two years later. The last major shakeup came when six of the NOL schools — minus Ontario — were invited and accepted the invitation to the SBC. Ontario went to the Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference, and were joined by Shelby one year later. Prior to the fall of 2017, the SBC went to its current three-division format with the addition of the former NOL schools. The SBC currently has 22 members spread across three divisions — the Lake, Bay and River. It featured 23 schools for the current school year before splitting up. The new-look SBC will also not include current members Willard, Tiffin Calvert, Old Fort, Hopewell-Loudon and New Riegel, which will be joining the Northern 10 Conference for the 2026-27 school year.