5 Ways Schools Honor Seniors

Honoring seniors is an important part of each season for high school football coaches. That recognition is all the more important this season with so many seniors getting adversely impacted by the pandemic.

BY DAN GUTTENPLAN, FNF COACHES EDITOR

One common theme from the fall season is that Senior Nights all over the country took place earlier than ever before. Typically an honorary night that is reserved for a team’s final home game, Senior Night -- in many cases -- was pushed to the beginning of the season in 2020. In fact, many teams had Senior Night celebrations on the same night as the home-opener this fall to ensure that the seniors would get the recognition they deserved even if the season was cut short.

Here’s an example of five creative ways schools have honored seniors during the pandemic.

1Dixon High (Martinsville, Va.) School Signage, Social Media Spotlights The school plans to run three seniors’ names per day on the sign in front of the school and post senior spotlights for each student on social media pages. The school also will have yard signs for each senior to put in front of their homes that will be distributed in the coming weeks.

■ Seniors at Dixon High (Va.) will be recognized with yard signs.

2Bucktail High (Renovo, Pa.) Mother/Grandmother Celebration Senior Night 2020 was truly a special occasion in September before the Bucks hosted Northwest. Bucks coach Jared Hurlbert decided to make the celebration special for the home-opener out of concern that his seniors might not have a chance to be recognized if games are cancelled later in the season.

Precautions allowed the team and their mothers and grandmothers to enjoy a night of celebration of a close knit team and classmates.

3Torrey Pines High (San Diego, Calif.) Sponsored Lawn Signs from Alumni “The Torrey Pines High School football program celebrated its 14 graduating seniors with surprise lawn signs last week, giving a boost of encouragement to those seniors who are missing so much with a postponed season. The special signs came courtesy of the football team’s parent liaison Romina Notarainni. She got the idea from Marco San Antonio at One Day Signs in Encinitas and got local real estate agents from The Guiltinan Group to sponsor the yard signs.

4Grayling High (Grayling, Mich.) YouTube Videos for Each Athlete The Grayling High School athletic department, instead of hosting a physical ceremony, honored its Class of 2020 student athletes with a video released on YouTube. Due to current restrictions on gatherings in the state of Michigan because of the COVID-19 outbreak, the school’s athletic department opted to replace the usual Senior-Athlete Awards Night with an online version.

5Conrad Weiser High (Reading, Pa.) Multi-Sport Senior Night Conrad Weiser had a Senior Night for football players, band members and cheerleaders -- at a party that came nearly 24 hours after a Friday night football game. It was scheduled the day after a game in order to allow more family members to attend the recognition ceremony. Senior Night is traditionally the final home game of the season, but with so much uncertainty due to COVID-19 many schools are not waiting until late October for such an important night.