Bananas running onto a high school football field are not something commonly seen, but what’s being seen by many in Oconto Falls as a harmless prank has resulted in four students being suspended after the Oct. 2 incident during the Panthers home football game.
Video of the incident shows three Oconto Falls High School students running onto the field, while the fourth student stayed on the edge of the field, while the House of Pain song “Jump Around” was playing. The students were carrying signs, but it was unclear from the video what was written on them.
The video shows the move took place in between plays and didn’t interfere with game activity itself. At the beginning of the video, someone behind the camera said, “Oh, here they come,” indicating it was known the students would be taking the field.
Then came the aftermath. Maxwell Pileski, an OFHS sophomore who was involved in the prank, said in a phone interview he was pulled away from the homecoming dance Oct. 3 by principal Steven Linssen, questioned and then told to call his mother to pick him up after being told he would be suspended for three days. As a result of that, he was not allowed to practice with the cross country team during that time, which meant he could not compete at a meet Oct. 9.
Pileski said he came up with the idea of dressing up in a banana costume based on a friend of his who had previously come to school wearing such a costume.
“I just thought it would be funny,” Pileski said. “I came up with the idea. I thought it was something we could maybe do next year, and then we realized we could just do it this year, and we decided to.”
One trip to Walmart later, there were five costumes ready to be used for the stunt. Pileski said only three of his friends decided to participate, and a fourth one who was originally going to join the fun got nervous and decided to back out.
Pileski said people in the community and the school were aware that the students were going to proceed with the stunt, and he had figured it was just a bit of harmless fun.
“We anticipated people would find it pretty funny,” he said. “Because it was homecoming, we didn’t expect the school to react with any sort of punishment. From what we’ve seen, everybody thought it was funny. One of the refs actually said, ‘That was bananas’ as we ran past. The three of us thought that was very funny.”
Pileski was referring to the friends who were on the field with him. He said the fourth friend was a little late on moving and decided to stay off the field so as to not hold up the game.
Pileski said he saw the whole thing as an act of school spirit and never imagined it would land him in hot water with school officials. He added his mother knew what they were going to do and never raised any objections.
“I was really surprised,” Pileski said. “I was really scared in the moment, because I’d never been in any kind of serious trouble up until now. I didn’t really know how my parents were going to react, because we thought it was completely harmless.”
NEW Media sent an email to Linssen to get the school’s side about the event. So far, there has been no response.
The issue is causing some in the community to speak out, however. Oconto Falls resident Brandi Story posted on her Facebook page that she saw the matter as the school asking for spirit, and the students simply brought “potassium.” She wrote that it’s something that seems more fun than something that would turn into an infraction that gets students suspended.
“I’m genuinely disappointed that something so harmless and silly — kids dressing up, making signs, supporting their school and having fun at Homecoming — ended with them being suspended,” Story wrote. “These are the kinds of memories high school is supposed to be about, not having the police escort you out of a school dance (without a parent) for a harmless prank the night before.”
Story wrote that there’s a difference between pranks that don’t cause any damage and those that do.
“No fighting, no vandalism, no drugs — just a bunch of boys in banana suits trying to make Homecoming memorable,” she wrote before concluding, “Pretty sure Oconto Falls has bigger issues right now they need to focus their energy on.”
Marcia Fischer, an OFHS alum, also sees the suspensions as unfair, posting a video on her Facebook page from a football game where her son played, and the crowd rushed onto the field after the win. Fischer noted the rushing onto the field is a violation of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association’s rules, just like the banana incident, but she never saw any discipline doled out when fans rushed the field.
“So why is it that when an entire student section does it, it’s called ‘school spirit,’ but when four sophomores do it in banana suits between quarters without interrupting a single play, it results in a three-day suspension and police involvement?” Fischer wrote. “If we can use common sense for one rule violation, we can use it for the other. Let them be kids.”
Pileski said the incident hasn’t extinguished his school spirit, but he admits to being a little hesitant to show it in the future.
“I think I’m still going to be outgoing with school spirit, but I don’t think as outgoing as we have been this past week,” he said.
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
Banana costumes for children sit on display Oct. 6 at the Shawano Walmart. Oconto Falls High School students purchased larger banana costumes from Walmart to wear when they ran onto the football field Oct. 2. (Lee Pulaski | NEW Media)
