The Southern Athletic Conference is an IHSAA-sanctioned athletic located within Clark, Harrison, and Jackson Counties in South Central Indiana. The conference began in 1974 as a four school conference, and grew to eight members within five years as other local conferences disbanded. The conference has lost two schools in the years since; both left for the Mid-Southern Conference. The Southern also had schools that had dual membership in other conferences at the same time, though by 1986, all of these schools entered full membership with a sole conference.