It was a football battle no one wanted to see.

Friday, for the first time, Lawrence High School and Free State High School had their Homecoming games on the same night. People with allegiances to both schools were forced to choose which game to attend.

“I was surprised to find out they are on the same night,” said Lawrence resident Ruth Wyatt. She has grandchildren involved in Homecoming at both schools. But Wyatt said she was going to the Free State game because her granddaughter, Megan Wyatt, was a Homecoming queen candidate.

“But I would have liked to have gone to both,” she said. “Nobody even knows that both are going on the same night unless you had ties to both. But, you know, some people graduated from Lawrence High and have children at Free State.”

The coincidental timing of the events is unfortunate, said Steve Nilhas, Lawrence High School principal.

He said he hadn’t heard any complaints, “but I know some people have questioned why it was done this way.”

Nilhas and Free State principal Joe Snyder said the schools didn’t want Homecoming on the same night, but because of league scheduling demands, there was no way around it.

“It’s not something we would prefer to do, but it’s what we had to do this year,” Nilhas said.

Nilhas and Snyder said the Sunflower League created the football schedule, and school officials looked for a Homecoming date based on that. At LHS and Free State, the criteria for selecting the date include the game being a home contest and the date falling in early October or before because of weather concerns, the principals said.

Members of the Free State High School junior class don togas and fake grapes as they're carried down Wakarusa Drive atop a Homecoming float. Free State students paraded from 15th Street to Sixth Street on Friday. Free State and LHS both played their Homecoming games Friday.

The schedule was further complicated because Free State wanted to have Homecoming on a Friday night. Sounds easy, but Snyder noted that Free State, which uses Kansas University’s Memorial Stadium for its home games, is contractually obligated to play on Thursdays when the Jayhawks have a Saturday home game.

So the Firebirds have only two home games with Friday dates: Sept. 17 and Oct. 15. Snyder said the October date was too late because of potential weather issues.

LHS has a home game scheduled Oct. 8, but that date was eliminated because school would not be in session that day.

“We don’t particularly like to play the Homecoming on a day we’re not even in school,” he said.

Lawrence High School senior Becky Ettredge, 17, and her miniature horse Jacob McGee, front, and junior John Berg, 16, and his Missouri fox trotter named Trigger wait for the start of the LHS Homecoming parade. The two Lawrence high schools had to share the date Friday for their Homecoming celebrations because of league football scheduling conflicts and weather concerns.

Nilhas said LHS also took into consideration the 120th anniversary of Haskell Indian Nations University this weekend. He said the high school and the university had a longstanding relationship.

“One thing we looked at is we wanted to try to pull together some things with Haskell and honor their 120 years and kind of tie some things together there, too,” he said. “So that’s part of what led to picking this date.”

Free State athletic director Steve Grant said having Homecoming on the same day was unfortunate for both schools.

“Really, this hurts the high schools more than anyone,” he said. “It’s going to hurt attendance at the games.

“I think the community likes to support both schools when they can. But there really was no way around this.”

Audio: Steve Nilhas, part 1 Audio: Steve Nilhas, part 2 Audio: Steve Nilhas, part 3 6News video: Homecoming fiasco Indians deny Lions Cougars dump Firebirds Photo Gallery: LHS and FSHS HomecomingsPre-game stories: Firebirds: No excuses (09-16-04) Injuries slowing Lions (09-16-04) More LHS Sports More Free State Sports