Great Valley could be returning to the Pioneer Athletic Conference. Last month the conference's existing members voted to approve the district as a member of the conference starting with the 2022-2023 school year, according a news release issued by Pat Nugent, the principal of Spring-Ford Senior High School and president of the conference.

            Membership is contingent on approval by the Great Valley School District board of directors, according to the information released by Mickey McDaniel, Spring-Ford's athletic director. They would be the conference's 13^th team.

            The vote to re-admit Great Valley, located in Malvern, occurred Dec. 10 during a conference meeting, according to information from McDaniel and Nikki Gum, a communication specialist with the Upper Perkiomen School District.

            Robert Kurzweg, Upper Perkiomen's athletic director, and McDaniel declined to provide any details relating any negative votes or respond to questions about which division Great Valley would compete in. They also declined to disclose if the conference was seeking another member.

            Nugent, in an email message received Dec. 26, did not provide any further details on the addition. He also decline to answer any questions regarding realignment, the nature of the vote or the conference's expansion plans.

            According to Gum, some members expressed concerns about the amount of travel time that would be needed for schools to compete in some league games, as well as the logistics of making a league schedule work for an uneven number of schools.

            "Many of the details are still being finalized in regards to Great Valley joining the conference," Gum wrote in an email received Dec. 13, 2019.

            If approved, Great Valley would be the southern-most school in the conference. The team currently competes in the Ches-Mont League. Google maps lists the travel time from Upper Perkiomen, the northern-most school in the PAC, to Great Valley as 54 minutes.

            Great Valley competed in the Pioneer Athletic Conference from 1988 to 2002 when it left to join the Ches-Mont. As of Oct. 5, 2017, the school had an enrollment of 963 students (471 girls and 492 girls), according to information posted on the PIAA District One website. The boys basketball, baseball and football teams complete in Class 5A. The girls basketball and softball teams complete in Class 5A. Its soccer team competes in Class 4A.