Question for those of you who went to a high school without football

In My Humble Opinion
1

My question is, if you went to a high school that did not play interscholastic football: how, if at all, did they do “homecoming”?

I suppose it’s easy enough to choose another sport, or even just have the homecoming queen (and/or king, if your school does that) ceremony at the homecoming dance (the school I went to seriously considered this one year when the football game was in the middle of an all-day rainstorm, although they decided just to move pretty much everybody into the gymnasium at halftime for the ceremony), although the latter has the problem of either leaving the princesses’ parents out of it or making them attend a high school dance. Then again, you can never have too many chaperones, right?

2

We only had soccer (our coach felt it was better exercise) and didn’t have any homecoming activities. I didn’t even realize it was a high school thing until long after I graduated.

3

My high school had a football team but there was no “john hughes” tradition of a “homecoming” game or event or anything. For one, we didn’t have our own field, so, any “homecoming” game would necessarily take place at another high school or a public field. But, more than that, football just wasn’t a big deal at my large, urban high school specialized for science & math. If we had a dance called “homecoming” it was just a traditional name for the first dance of the year, and had nothing to do with any sport.

4

Obviously, cross-country should be the celebrated sport. :smiley:

The school I coach at goes all out. The classes build floats and the downtown and school are closed for a parade. (Small town, about a mile square)

5

My freshman year I went to a small Christian high school. We didn’t have football, but we did have basketball. We had our “homecoming” during one of the first basketball games of the season. Only we didn’t do a real homecoming with homecoming queen. We did a fake one. Instead of picking the most popular girl and guy from each year, we were told to pick the boy and girl from our class who best represented the “fruit of the spirit” assigned to our class. I think our class had faith or peace or something. In the end it was still just a popularity contest.

My son’s public charter school doesn’t field any sports teams. They don’t do homecoming.

6

Until this thread I had no idea the Homecoming game and the Homecoming dance were so linked at some schools. At my high school, the Homecoming Dance was its own thing (king and queen were crowned there) and the Homecoming (Football) Game was its own thing. And it was rare for the game and the dance to even be held the same weekend.

7

I went to a New York city school (in Queens) where my graduating class was over 1500. No football, no homecoming. In 1969 we all stuck our noses up at the prom.
We did have basketball, baseball. I guess soccer, and golf.

My junior year they decided to see about starting a football program, and to measure interest, started selling season tickets. They sold under a dozen, and decided it was a bad idea. It was not exactly Texas.

To go to the next level, I went to a college without football too (unless you count hacking Harvard games.) No homecoming there either - alumni return at graduation, where we are expected to donate gobs of money.

8

It was a very small school. We didn’t do homecoming. We stopped bothering with a prom too.

9

Same as Reality Chuck. Just soccer, no homecoming.

10

We didn’t have homecoming or prom at my high school. Word on the street was that we didn’t have football because back in nineteen-aught-whatever, when they played with leather helmets and metal cleats, a student died. So, football, banned forever.

Soccer, lacrosse and basketball were the top Boys sports instead.

11

My high school had football (I actually played), but my graduate school didn’t (UT-Dallas), and they did Homecoming around the basketball teams, IIRC.

Totally weird, IMO, especially considering that for undergrad I went to probably the biggest football-crazy university without homecoming (Texas A&M).

12

My high school had no athletics whatsoever, no P.E., nuthin’.

We also had no homecoming or proms.

We did do a fair amount of drugs though.

13

My high school had two homecomings. One for football and one for basketball.

The college I graduated from didn’t have a football team, and still had homecoming in the Fall.
It was several days of activities:
— Alumni Awards & Networking Reception, 5:30-8 pm
—“Mock Dorm Burn” 12 pm, Campus Green
— Student Life Lip Sync, 7 pm, University Place Amphitheater (rain location University Rooms)
Thursday October 17th
— Black & Gold Birthday Party for Alumni turning 50 by invitation only (RSVP required), 5:30 pm-7:30 pm, Alumni House 56
— Pep Rally, 7 pm, University Place Amphitheater

Friday October 18th
— VKSU/SGA “The Big Event” Service Project, 11 am- 3 pm, Campus Green
— Reunions & Receptions, 6 pm, Bank Stadium
— Soccer Match and fireworks show, KSU vs. Stetson 7 pm, Bank Stadium
— Concession vouchers for Alumni available at Soccer Match

Saturday October 19th
—Field Games & Powder Puff Competition, 10 am, Sports & Rec Park
— PFA Networking Mix & Mingle, 4:30 pm, xxxxxxx Hall
— Homecoming Parade & Prowl, 5 pm, around campus
— “Flight Night,” 7:15 pm, Convocation Center
— Free Concert with Chuck Wicks, 8:45 pm, Campus Green

Sunday October 20th
— Parent & Family Association (PFA) Brunch, 11 am, The Commons
— Soccer Match, KSU vs. FGCU 1 pm, Stadium
— KAB Fashion Show & Concert, doors open @6 pm, Convocation Center

14

Sports were a pretty big deal here in my town.

Jocks would dress up as ladies and the pep rallies and what have you.

15

My high school had all the traditional sports, but we never had Homecoming. In fact, now that I think about it, we didn’t have dances, either. There was a 9th-Grade Semi-Formal, the Junior Prom and the Senior Ball, and that was it. Three dances in four years.

16

No dancing and no football, but we did have a homecoming banquet where there would be a variety show put on by the underclassmen.

All the normal homecoming activities occurred around a soccer game instead.

17

I went to a large city school that always played football (and work at a similar one) but here in northwest Ohio you don’t have to go all that far to find places that look like Hickory in Hoosiers. The few schools too small to have football all play homecoming basketball games in January.

A local small “pre-engineering” school that has no athletics (but does have quiz bowl & chess teams) has a fall celebration week of truly nerdy activities, all done tongue-in-cheek.

18

There was no football at my high school, soccer being the big sport there. I don’t think we had homecoming. If we did, I paid no attention to it.

19

We actually did have the homecoming football game, but we also had “Colors Day” during basketball season. Do most people with both football and basketball not do this?

And homecoming king and queen are always popularity contests, no matter what kind of rules you try to put on them. At my school, you might get a token less popular girl for one of the lower ranks, but king and queen were always who the popular kids got together and decided should win.

20

I went to a very tiny high school for a time - 12 kids in my year. One of the basketball games was designated the homecoming game, but there was no associated dance or anything.