There may no longer be a varsity football season, but there will be a homecoming celebration at Gilroy High School.
Sports boosters, alumni, parents, cheerleaders, student organizations and teachers and staff at Gilroy High went ahead this week with the school’s annual Homecoming celebration, despite the cancellation of the Mustangs’ varsity football season.
The junior varsity team will be playing its home game at 6pm on Friday, and the big Homecoming Dance will proceed as scheduled on Saturday.
The school may still be reeling from the stunning forfeiture of the Mustangs’ varsity football when many team members quit, effective Oct. 5, but you wouldn’t know it from this week’s school spirit schedule.
On Monday, students dressed as their favorite teacher.
The next day, students worked in four-person costume teams, with matching clothes or costumes, from superheroes to pop stars.
Then on Wednesday, the Tenth Street campus was swarming with animal costumes, on “Hungry, Hungry Hippo Day.”
It was to be back to basics on Thursday, Oct. 17, as students were to dress up and make words with friends who wear letters.
The week was to culminate Friday with traditional Blue and White Day, when students wear the distinctive school colors.
At Friday’s junior varsity football game first-year varsity coach Simeon Nash will be helping out, and as many as seven sophomores he had coached on the senior team are reported to be playing with their classmates on the junior varsity team.
Officials of the Gilroy Unified School District continue their silence, not just about the allegations that one football player was attacked by four teammates after practice on Sept. 26, but about whether the high school or the school district would be taking any remedial steps or implementing any new policies or procedures to better protect students or begin conversations or training about bullying or hazing.
This week, the emphasis has been on the positive. The color of healing at the school is blue and white. The sounds of the healing will be at the Homecoming Dance. The therapy of healing is Saturday’s game night at the GHS Student Center.
