Emily Ota | Head Editor
September 26, 2025
It’s that time of the year again: Homecoming! With the start of Homecoming festivities beginning this Friday, September 26, school is officially back in swing. For years, students have loved Homecoming week, which includes spirited dress-up days, the parade on Del Mar, the football game and half-time shows, and, of course, the dance. All students enjoy Homecoming week, but what goes into making it happen?
Throughout Homecoming week, ASB puts out a spirit day each day, Monday through Friday. For example, this year, Monday was representing your grade (the theme was Tritons Abroad), Tuesday was twin day, Wednesday was western-wear, Thursday was stop light colors to represent your relationship status, and Friday closed it off with Adam Sandler day. Myla Pert, SCHS senior and Head Activities Commissioner, commented that behind these spirit days, ASB members actively work and collaborate to come up with the most fun ideas for the SCHS students during their Thursday formal meetings.
The parade on Del Mar has been a tradition at San Clemente High for many years. Annually, the iconic Del Mar street is completely shut down for SCHS clubs, sports, and royalty to stroll down while cheering family and friends see them off. What the onlookers don’t see, however, is the countless hours that go into setting it all up. Pert remarked that the parade “takes a lot of coordination” between making the floats since the summer, recruiting convertibles to transport prominent members of the event, and organizing the sports and clubs. The floats themselves take around twenty or more hours to create because they are built by hand by the individual ASB classes. To actually close down Del Mar street, Pert confirmed that ASB is in charge of meeting with a city planning member, where he or she talks “about all the past street closures,” making sure to “update [ASB] of any changes that the city wants to make based on safety.” Mr. Reid, the Activities Director for SCHS, mentioned that, for example, one of the changes this year is that there will be no parking allowed on Del Mar, where in the past, cars were permitted to stay in their spots. Reid included that the signage for the closed street goes up a week in advance, and that the ASB members “hand deliver notices that the parade is coming” to businesses and residents in the Del Mar area. In addition to shutting down the street, activities members of ASB have the responsibility of organizing the order of the parade, keeping council members and the Top Five together, and ensuring that everything runs smoothly.
Another known custom of the SCHS Homecoming is the themes for each grade. Pert explained that ASB figures out the themes by having a meeting and throwing out ideas, much like how they decide the spirit days. Usually, seniors get the best theme and it goes down the grades from there. These themes are important to the football game’s half-time show, where each grade gets the opportunity to put on a dance according to their theme. To get people to participate in these dances, each grade sets up a table at registration to encourage students to sign up. To actually make the dance and music, each ASB class has to put their heads together, and each does it a little differently. Pert stated that for her class, the seniors, they have an ASB member who is also on the dance team, so she “teaches it to the ASB class and then she teaches it to everyone at practice.” The half-time dances are one of SCHS students’ favorite ways to celebrate Homecoming because of the unique opportunity to go on the field in front of the game’s biggest crowd all year.
Finally, Homecoming week comes to a close with the dance on Saturday. Out of all the weekly activities, Pert revealed that it is the one with the least amount of ASB member affiliation. Instead, the dance is mostly managed by a professional company, NFX, and the ASB advisors are the main communicators with them. However, it is still a big task to take on, considering the arrangement and management of the event. Reid disclosed that he begins meeting with NFX as far as five weeks in advance to plan Homecoming. Furthermore, he stated how much consideration goes into the setup of the dance, and how ASB and its advisors try their best to get “fun rides that are different each year” to ensure Homecoming stays interesting for students. Reid revealed that NFX begins setting up the rides Saturday morning, with the DJ, food vendors, and decorations following suit. Once all of this is in place, the dance is ready to be filled with students!
Homecoming is a guaranteed week of fun festivities for students, and is worth all of the hard work that ASB puts into it each and every year. To the students, it might just seem like one week of entertainment, but to ASB, it is months of gruesome work and planning to put it all together. To continue to keep the excitement alive and have ASB’s work pay off, make sure you are participating in Homecoming week!
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