How to use the Illinois High School Twitter Database
Twitter, unlike any other social media has been the go-to for sports teams, players, coaches, media, and fans. Yet, searching the platform to find accounts isn’t always the easiest, and forget about doing it in mid-tweet. If you’re looking for the basketball team from Washington, good luck with that; there are multiple grade schools, high schools, and colleges with that name.
Frustrated with searching myself I started a spreadsheet to list all the Illinois high schools and just about every official Twitter account they have. Below is a link to a publicly viewable only Google sheet that is constantly being updated.
Please read quick notes on how to use
Schools are listed by their full names; example: Aurora Central Catholic, not Central Catholic. Because there is a Bloomington Central Catholic, Newman Central Catholic, & Marian Central Catholic.
Schools are not listed like the IHSA does; example: Sterling (Newman Central Catholic), Sterling is the town name, but is not used in the schools official name, so it’s listed as Newman Central Catholic. Aurora (Central Catholic) or Joliet (Catholic) are not just listed as Central Catholic, or Catholic, because both schools use their town’s name in their school’s name.
Example #2: Aurora (East) is how the IHSA lists the school, but the school goes by the name East Aurora.
You can always sort by town name; example: Want to find the Washington from Washington, Illinois, not Chicago, Illinois? Column 2 is sortable by town name. Notre Dames, we’re talking about you.
School Sports vs School Main: Most schools have a Twitter account just for sports and one they used for public announcements and sometimes sports as well. The first two columns after “city” will be the sports & main accounts.
Team Sports columns: Right now the columns start with the big sports (football, basketball, baseball/softball, volleyball, wrestling, soccer, Track/XC). After that the rest are alphabetical from bowling to tennis. In most cases there is a boys & girls column.
Other columns:
Student section – Just what it sounds like
Other 1 to 5 – everything from less common sports, JV accounts, to school staff like principles. Most will have an explanation in parentheses.
Coaches – Just what it sounds like. AD=athletic director HC=head coach FB=football BBK=boys basketball GBK=girls basketball, and so on.
Coverage – currently a personal reference for schools in the coverage area of newspapers I freelance for.
Color Codes:
Other Sheets
There are two other sheets that are a work in progress. One being for conferences & organizations like coaches associations and tournaments. The other sheet is a media guide. Both are Twitter account databases as well.
How to report missing sports/high school accounts?
As of March 2022 this list should contain all the IHSA member schools, about 840. There were a few missing, so if you don’t see on let me know.
[co-op temas] I have added a few co-op teams that have Twitter accounts, but I will not add a co-op unless there is a specific co-op Twitter account.First, coaches & school staff; absolutely send me any Twitter account you have just created. Best way, email me here vincent.johnson [at] othervertical [dot] com. If you DM me on social, I assure you it will probably get lost by the time I’m ready to update the list. All I need in the email is the copied url of the twitter account(s), example: https://twitter.com/WCHSFootball201
Second, anyone else; if you really want to help, please don’t send me just the one account you’re interested in for that school. Send me as many as you know that aren’t listed. Heck send some from other schools in your area, conference, sport whatever. The more in one email the better. Please email them over DMs on social.
vincent.johnson [at] othervertical [dot] com
Sorry this isn’t clickable, but I hate spam. All I need in the email is the url for the account; example: https://twitter.com/bbchs307 If the Twitter account is completely obvious to non-locals who it is for please give me a school name. This list is here because @WildcatsFB_dist299 is a head scratcher to most of us. Also, I assure you there are more than one BHS schools out there.
Thanks to everyone who sends me updates.