The Hoosier Legends Conference will provide a world of opportunity for the Woodmen going forward.
In the 2026-2027 school year, the Woodmen will join Beech Grove, Indian Creek, Monrovia, Speedway, Triton Central, and Tri-West in the Hoosier Legends Conference. Principal Michael Gasaway sees the change of conference as an opportunity to be more competitive.
“I see this change to the Hoosier Legends Conference as an opportunity to compete competitively throughout all of our sports,” Mr. Gasaway said. “We think the Hoosier Legends Conference fits our amount of students perfectly. The difference with the Mid-State conference was that the other schools had much more depth and students to choose from. With our enrollment numbers not increasing, we thought that the Hoosier Legends Conference was best for us.”
One reason for switching conferences was to allow GHS to be more prepared for Sectionals.
“I believe that the Hoosier Legends Conference will give us the best chance to prepare for Sectional competition. The change in level of competition should help our athletes maintain confidence and a positive mindset going into tournaments,” Mr. Gasaway said.
Although there are many benefits to the HLC, the location of the other schools was initially a concern.
“One of the main concerns when making the decision to move to the HLC was the location of our opposing schools. The other schools in the HLC are much farther away compared to the schools in the Mid-State,” Mr. Mike Campbell, athletic director, said. “The change to the HLC will make our conference games further away, but this also allows us to schedule schools from the Mid-State that are nearby for our non-conference schedule.”
Another concern was leaving the history of the Mid-State behind.
“GHS was one of the founding schools of the Mid-State conference back in 1942. When talking with alumni from the 60s and 70s, even they agreed that it was a good time to move on from the conference,” Mr. Campbell said.
Although the Woodmen are changing conferences, scheduling should be relatively the same.
“When it comes to most sports, we will still have similar schedules. All of the schools we originally had on our schedules still want to play us. But for football, conference play will obviously look a little different,” Mr. Gasaway said.
Outside of athletics, the change to the HLC will not affect Greenwood students significantly.
“Outside of athletics, there won’t be many changes. We will still be around all of the same schools, like schools in Johnson County, when it comes to non-athletic things,” Mr. Gasaway said.
