The first Varsity football game was against Shawnee Mission East on Sept. 3. Although it may appear to be a normal football game, it was the first Nut Cup game since 2018 and it was surrounded by hype.

“The Nut cup started in 1958 when they built Shawnee Mission East because it was the second school in the school district,” senior Connor Bell said. “So where SME was built there was a walnut tree, and they cut down the walnut tree, and for some reason, they made a trophy out of it.”

The nut cup happens every year when Shawnee Mission North and Shawnee Mission East first play each other. The game helps to symbolize the rivalry between the first two schools in the district.

“Whenever SME and SMN play it’s called the nut cup and whenever one team wins they have to present the nut cup to the other school,” Bell said.

The game was already getting hyped up with t-shirts, posters, and posts on social media. This only escalated when SME students started commenting on a post from the SMN Student Council Instagram.

“The SMN StuCo account had like hundreds of comments on it,” senior Cameron Lee said. “Some of them were fine, some of them were just like roasting each other’s school, but it ended up getting really personal for some people and there was like personalized hate instead of just school rivalries.”

Things continued to escalate when a member of SMN’s Pep Club was spat on while filming a promotional video for the nut cup at SME.

“We were approached by people at East and I was ultimately spat on in the face by somebody in the face who ended up going to a boarding school in New Hampshire, and not even going to East,” Lee said. “Good on East for being the friendly ones there actually.”

After lots of rain and a mid-game lightning delay, SMN ended up losing the game 28-7. Nonetheless SMN still had great student involvement both at the game and all through the week leading up to it.

“We loved the student turn-out; it was great to see students enjoying themselves and smiling,” Athletic Director Annette Gonzales said. “Our student leaders have done a tremendous job of bringing the energy and excitement.”