The Philadelphia Public League (PPL) traces its origin back to 1901, with the formation of the Philadelphia Interscholastic League, a conference encompassing all the city's high schools, public and private. Prior to this date, the public and private schools in the area had been competing among themselves for several years in several sports, including football and basketball. Basketball and track and field were the first recognized sports in 1901, but football, although not formally on the schedule, engaged all the same teams and newspapers usually recognized the school with the best record as the (lower case) interscholastic champion. In 1902, baseball and crew were added to the schedule.

History

Initially, the Public League members were the four public schools that withdrew from the Interscholastic League—Central, Central Manual, Northeast

Northeast High School (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

Northeast High School is a high school located at 1601 Cottman Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States....

, and Southern—joined by West Philadelphia High. Germantown Academy

Germantown Academy

Germantown Academy is America's oldest nonsectarian day school, founded on December 6, 1759 . Germantown Academy is now a K-12 school in the Philadelphia suburb of Fort Washington, having moved from its original Germantown campus in 1965...

, a private school, joined a few years later. Overbrook, Frankford, Simon Gratz, Olney, and Roxborough would join the league in the next couple of decades.

Football, basketball, rifle, outdoor track, crew, and baseball were offered the first school year of competition, 1911-12. Crew was particularly big in Philadelphia, as the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

 sponsored interscholastic meets for the sport and encouraged its adoption by the city high schools. Soccer and cross country were added just before World War I, and in the 1920s saw the introduction of swimming, gymnastics, golf, and tennis. The league experimented with indoor track (1915–21), ice hockey (1922), and bowling (1930–32), but these sports drew insufficient interest for the league to sustain them on the athletic calendar. Crew was dropped by the league in 1919, which was a grievous blow to Central High, which for decades had one of the great rowing programs in the country.

Members

The public school members in the Philadelphia Interscholastic League included Central High, Central Manual, and Northeast, in the first few years, and beginning in 1909 Southern. There were at least twelve different private schools that were members—secular, Quaker, and Catholic—and the most notable members were Brown Preparatory, Roman Catholic

Roman Catholic High School for Boys

The Roman Catholic High School of Philadelphia opened in 1890 as an all-male high school located at the intersection of Broad and Vine Streets in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.-History:...

, Friends Central Select, and LaSalle. In 1911, the public school members withdrew from the league to form the Philadelphia High School League (later called the Philadelphia Public League).