Is high school homecoming just about the stupidest concept you’ve ever heard of?

I wouldn't know, I never went to any of mine. Could not have cared less.

I went to one of mine - my mom got the dressed up picture she wanted, but otherwise it was entirely a waste of time.

Can't wait for mine in October. It's combined with our class reunion. Lots of us going back. Not everyone was miserable in high school. I had a great time in high school, then in college, then grad school then my professional career! Life is what you make it.

[quote] Why would anyone want to go back…and for that?

For the fresh pussy

You mean just the game or the dance as well?

We had the game on a Friday night (where the Top 15 girls were driven around the track field in cars), and the Queen was crowned at half-time. There were always a few alumni (usually just from the year before) who showed up, mostly townies.

The dance was the next night, where the King was crowned, but no alumni came to the dance.

It's about as silly as any other high school popularity contest like Student Council elections or Senior Superlatives ("Most Likely To...").

Homecoming activities would be so much more interesting if prospective kings were voted on by how they looked in jockstraps.

R5 the dance and homecoming themed games for students and alumni as well. I thought it was silly even when I was a student.

Nah, we locked them alumni outta the dance. LOL Get a life, graduates!

We never had a beauty pageant at my high school -homecoming or not. Where are you, OP??

every person matures at a different rate

[quote] We never had a beauty pageant at my high school -homecoming or not. Where are you, OP??

Exactly. Most homecoming queens are chosen based on their SAT scores. OP is aberrational.

People voted on our homecoming queen and king which meant the most beautiful popular people won.

Only the students vote -it's a popularity contest more than anything else. There is no bathing suit competition or talent show. The seniors just vote on the people they like best.

Our king and queen were the ones who swallowed the most semen.

I'm in my 50s and never knew the alumni returned, but that does explain the name. That shows how little attention I paid to the event.

The Homecoming Queen was typically the school's biggest slut.

Our homecoming queen and king were the ones with brothers and sisters in the grades below who influenced their classmates to vote for their older siblings

These alumni reunions and homecomings happen for two reasons:

1. For those who want/need to impress others with their fortunes and successes. 2. For those who want/need to be impressed by others of their fortunes and successes.

Which side are you on ?

My class has never had a reunion, but my senior year's Homecoming Court were the daughters of women who had been on the court their own senior years. Or something very close to that (i.e. her aunt was on it; her sister had been Miss Junior Class, etc.)

My brother was homecoming king at my high school. He was studly, I'll admit.

I went to an all-boys college prep school run by Jesuits.

I never had the first clue what all of these high school traditions even were.

I always associated that with Archie and Jughead, father knows best, suburban stuff (I grew up in a decaying city in the NYC area).

R21 this culture was still very much alive in the 1990s and 2000s

I could have given two shits about the game itself, but the week leading up to it was always enjoyable. The pep rallies, the theme days like opposite sex day, my chance to go to school in drag, toga day, I got to wear my turquoise bedsheet as a caftan/toga, Hippy day, the hottest boy in school came over to dye my hair!

My nephews also went to an all-boys school.

They had the corresponding all-girls school and both schools would somehow find themselves and invite each other to their respective dances.

My nephew invited a girl from Loretto and she got a very pretty homecoming mum.

It’s a fun time for the students but I don’t recall older people coming to the festivities, unless they were being honored in some way.

The homecoming court was a popularity contest so the most popular would always win.

No, not at all. It is a rite of passage for happy students in high school and the haters who make fun of things they feel excluded from. Sad to be a grownup and still tied to an unhappy past.

Haha. Speak for yourself. I just ignored it/was totally unaware of it.

I don't like to think about high school because we moved in the middle of my junior year and it was difficult being separated from the familiarity.

If the stats on the attached chart are correct, there are probably many people in the US who live in the same town they grew up, close to the high school they attended. High school may have also been the highest level of education. So it would make sense that some of those would attend local high school sports games. It doesn't make sense to me as someone who spent a quarter of his life 3000 miles away from his hometown and family, but I realize that that is also not the norm. As a high school student, if I thought about it at all, I just thought that homecoming meant that the team was playing a home game, rather than an away game and there were some rituals - dances, toilet-papering houses, parties. But in reading a bit more about it, it seems the notion was started by colleges, not by high-schools, and it was truly an alumni event. I can say, as someone who taught at FSU for quite a few years, that alumni fans of big football colleges are VERY loyal, and their attachment to their schools are most in evidence at football games.

High schools only glommed onto these traditions much much later.

[quote]Is high school homecoming just about the stupidest concept you’ve ever heard of? We are going to invite alumni to come back for a football game where we also have a beauty pageant to rate female students on their looks.

It sounds like you're complaining about something you've "heard of," while not actually knowing what it is. There is no beauty pageant, and the game and dance are on two different nights. Think about it; high school football games are played in the evening, how can schools have a 2.5-3 hour game around 6:30/7 PM, where players, cheerleaders, pep squad and the mascot get all sweaty, and then a 3-4 hour dance afterwards?

My brother played football in high school; he graduated in the late 90s, and he still goes to homecoming with his friends and former teammates. One of his friends eventually became either the coach or assistant coach, but I don't know if he still is.

Are you opposed to all alumni events?

Are university homecomings stupid, too?

Lost the Little Miss St. Olaf pageant OP?

Some people the reached the height of their lives in high school. Let them feel good about themselves

Me and my high school girlfriend were the living embodiment of whatever the opposite was of school spirit (think of Linda Cardellini on Freaks and Geeks). When I announced I wasn't attending homecoming, my poor mother said, "Aren't you afraid you'll disappoint Rachel?" and I snarled back, "She wants to go even less than I do."

[quote]There is no beauty pageant,

I took this as figurative. It is a bit like Miss America. The voting just takes place before the event.

Like R3, I had a great time in high school. I wasn't popular in the usual sense of high school popularity. But I was pretty popular in my circle of activities - band, choir, academics, etc. Three of my best friends right now were friends I made in high school. Forty years later we still talk each week and often get together to do stuff. I'm not stuck in high school, though. I had a great college experience too. And I've had a good career and marriage as well. Life has been mostly good.

I live about 50 miles from my hometown (same metro area, just a different part), so it would be easy to go to a homecoming game if I wanted to. But I've only gone to a few over time and usually those were in conjunction with class reunions. Homecoming week for the kids is just a time for fun activities and celebration. For the adults it's an opportunity to reconnect with old friends and share memories.

Wow I’ve not American so I never knew what homecoming was. I assumed it was something about sports. That’s seriously fucked up it seems creepy when people who have already graduated come hang out at high school

R18 Neither. Just getting together at the 40th anniversary of when we graduated high school. We went to a small private school and are scattered all over. Many of us started kindergarten together. I went to the 25th and no one bragged or cared much about what anyone did. We laughed and bonded. Shared life's ups and downs and were grateful we had the such a great upbringing. I enjoy seeing the friends I grew up with - pretty special.

R36's experience is pretty much the same as mine at my reunions. The image of high school reunions being some sort of Romy & Michelle-like bitchy competition between the mean girls and everyone else is pretty much a Hollywood invention, if my reunions are any indication.

You sound well adjusted R34 - why are you on DL?

R21, St Peter’s

As an adult, homecoming is the easiest way to fuck the football coach. Ours was only moderately fuckable, so I only went back a few times until he started to feel guilty about his marriage.

I often wonder about that myself, R38. But you bitches do make me laugh a lot, so I can't imagine ever leaving.

R15 - same here. I never understood why it was called "Homecoming" and thought it had something to do with coming back to the school after the Homecoming football game, but if the game was HELD at the school, it didn't make sense.

Anyway, count me as another one who didn't know until today that Alumni returning to the school for the event is the reason they call it that.

I’m sure r22, but it is rooted in that post-WWII suburban life that you see so much of on tv and in the movies — utterly alien to me, but always on display.

To some extent this also applies to the more rural American experience of the high school sports team whose stadium and games totally dominate the community. You see that in the media a lot but it might as well by Timbuktu to someone who grew up in a big northeastern city.

I don't care at all about my old high school or college.

R3= Jennifer Garner

At my high school, new student dark-haired Lillian waltzed in in her senior year and won the Homecoming Queen crown over long-time favorite blonde Crystal. It was such a scandal!

There are two types of people in American life:

1.) Those for whom high school was their shining moment.

2.) And those for whom it was not (who knew that better things lied ahead.)

The life is what you make it comment pissed me off. For fucks sake sports shouldn't even be in school. And beauty contests what the hell is that. Shit heads abounded and the biggest assholes and bitches reined in that horrible world. The sports department sucks all the life and money out of half the high schools in America and nobody seems to have a problem with that.

I liked the homecoming game and the homecoming assembly in high school. As a young gayling, of course i didn't like the homecoming dance.

But now I'm learning that homecoming was about alumni coming back? WTF? I don't recall anything about alumni at those assemblies or the game. Just the popular people getting named to the court, a bunch of absurd skits, performing at the assembly as part of the choir, and the homecoming game was always after an away game so I thought it had something to do with that. Apparently I was enjoying those things without having a clue why they were being held. wow!

And I thought I was a bitter old queen. Seriously, high school sucks for so many people for so many reasons. I get it. I just got lucky and had a ball. We all moved on and lost touch and live all over the country but we come back every 5-10 years and it's so fun. That's my story and my good fortune. I get it is not the norm.

It’s weird how people Obsess about high school. Even if you had a good time it’s just a part of your life and it’s just the beginning before your real life starts

[quote] For fucks sake sports shouldn't even be in school.

Same for music, drama and visual arts.

Music, drama, visual arts, AND sports all belong in school. It's just that sports get SO MUCH of the attention and money...that's the real problem.

If you pretty, you come home to me.

Ban football but keep wrestling - need I explain why?

I had an in-between experience in high school. It was neither the greatest nor the worst period of my life. Still, I can't imagine ever going back. I can't even imagine going to a reunion.

I was on my own little planet in high school and paid absolutely no attention to sportsball or formal proms. But my friends and I went to the informal rock and roll dances with live bands and got down, and the annual student art exhibit and school play/musicals were major cultural events to me. To each their own.

There’s an episode of Reba where Cheyenne and Van have to bribe the nerds to vote for Cheyenne to be homecoming queen as she’s lost her looks while pregnant. They even refer to it as a beauty contest so don’t tell me it’s not even when it’s not an official pageant.

I don't think the hottest person always wins. It's more like there's a certain level of hotness required to be popular enough to be a contender.