Nicolet Homecoming Mellow Despite Vandalism

The stands were full for Nicolet High School's Homecoming football game Friday night against Grafton despite low morale and disappointment among students after their Homecoming pep rally was cancelled due to a "possible disruption."

School officials are tight-lipped in providing more specific details on what happened Friday, but students told Patch at the game that there was quite a bit of vandalism at Nicolet leading up to the game which they believe, led administrators to cancel the pep rally.

In addition to a broken window, and a teacher's laptop tossed into the pool, someone stole a mannequin and hung it outside the office, students told Patch. That mannequin had principal Greg DePue's name on it. After a meeting between administrators and Glendale Police, students got the news that the rally was off. 

"The last hour before classes started they came over the announcements and said it would be cancelled and we all thought it was unfair," Lauren Schnoll, a Nicolet senior said. "I mean, it's our senior year, last one. We were so excited."

This all follows a crack down by administration on the "LAX Bros and Preppy Hoes" dress-up day, a special dress-up theme organized by and for Nicolet Seniors. 

"This year, we had something which we called 'Preppy Day,'" Schnoll said. "And every year, it's considered tradition that they do something where the name is, like 'Bros and Hoes.' Honestly, a lot of the teachers said girls looked cute in their outfits. No one was any worse than anything in past years." 

Some of the previous, unofficial, senior-themes during homecoming were titles like "Walk of Shame Day" and "Jersey Shore Day." But many students and teachers say previous years have been much more "disruptive-looking" than how students were dressed Thursday.  

"Basically, we just feel like they're taking it out on our grade when nothing has changed between what we're doing and past years. So, we feel like we got all the blame, our pep rally was cancelled, we were all upset," Schnoll said. 

But disappointment didn't stop there. 

Mary Donoghue is on the Nicolet Dance Team and said they have been practicing their homecoming pep rally hip hop dance for more than 10 hours. Since they had a separate dance to perform for the football game, their favorite—the hip hop dance—went unperformed.  

"The motivation for us to be able to do hip hop was to learn pom and get pom to look good," Donoghue said. "So, we worked really hard on both routines and we were really bummed because doing hip hop at the school is so much fun and the crowd loves it. They like pom too, but it's not as exciting as hip hop because the kids get into it." 

But the crowd still roared at the dance team's game time performance Friday.