The Suburban League is an outgrowth of the old Summit County League. The Summit League consisted of 13 schools including: Bath (Revere), Richfield (Revere), Greensburg (Green), Boston Township (Woodridge), Northfield-Macedonia (Nordonia), Copley, Twinsburg, Manchester, Hudson, and Mogadore.
In 1949 the larger schools in the league—Copley, Greensburg (Green), Hudson, Manchester, and Northfield-Macedonia (Nordonia)—formed the Suburban League while the smaller schools remained in the Summit County League. The League operated with the original five schools for eight years although Highland (formerly Sharon-Granger) did participate in the League in football. In 1958—Revere, Boston Township (Woodridge), Mogadore, and Twinsburg (Chamberlin)—merged to make the league nine teams.
The Suburban League existed with nine schools until 1964 when Twinsburg (Chamberlain) left to join the Chagrin Valley Conference. The league introduced the All-Sports Trophy in 1967-1968 which is awarded to the school that does the best in all sports competitions. Mogadore withdrew following the 1967-68 school year to join the Portage County League. The league operated with seven schools until Coventry left the Metropolitan League to become a member in 1969-1970.
In 1972-1973, girl’s sports were added to Suburban League competition—they had previously competed in Y-Teens as part of the YWCA.
When Norton withdrew from the Metropolitan League and was admitted to membership in 1972-73, the league again had nine members. But Nordonia withdrew the following season to become a member of the Metropolitan League.
Highland joined the league when Manchester opted to join the All-Ohio Conference in 1976. Field replaced Woodridge in 1978, and when Coventry left to join the All-Ohio Conference following the 1982-83 school year, the league again operated with seven schools. Wadsworth was admitted to membership in December of 1981 and began actively participating in the fall of 1984.
In 1990, Field withdrew from the league to join the Portage County League and Tallmadge left the Metropolitan League to join the Suburban League.
After the 1996-97 season, Hudson left the league to join the Western Reserve Conference. Cloverleaf High School withdrew from the Pioneer Conference and began Suburban League competition in the 1997-98 school year.
In 2005, Norton left to join the new two-tier 16-school Portage Trail Conference. Barberton withdrew from the Western Reserve Conference and joined the Suburban League.
In 2011, Barberton left the league to become independent and the Nordonia Knights (an original member 1949-1973) withdrew from the Northeast Ohio Conference to rejoin the Suburban League—forming the eight member league as it exists today.
In 2015, big changes occurred to the Suburban League. First, Green left the conference to become a member of the Federal League and Cloverleaf left to become a member of the Portage Trail Conference. Second, the league expanded into one 7-team and one 8-team conference—high school based upon enrollment (National Conference-Big School and American Conference-Small School) while middle school based on geography (East and West). The expansion will see three former members return: Hudson (1949-1996), Twinsburg (1958-1963), and Barberton (2005-2010). It also will welcome six new members into the league: Stow-Munroe Falls, North Royalton, Cuyahoga Falls, Brecksville-Broadview Heights, Kent Roosevelt, and Aurora.
