Kennedy Junior High School

Kennedy Junior High School (not to be confused with New Mexico's Kennedy Middle School) is a junior high school in Naperville, IL. It has a very successful student-dominated team, placing high at states and regionals. They have occasionally made Nationals. Their team is tryout-based, with spots for 15 varsity, 15 for the JV team, and at least two alternates. Eighth graders can only make varsity, which goes to states and, hopefully, Nationals. However, one or two JV members are invited to states as alternates.

Though their team sometimes (actually, usually) screws around during practice, they show their expertise in competition, beating out teams with more than ten times as many coaches as them.

Also, like most division B teams in Illinois, they have a special dislike of Hawthorn South - in 2012, Kennedy's teammates and coaches alike were somewhat wildly excited about South not making Nationals. Though this may seem like poor sportsmanship, it is just team rivalry, and other teams likely behave this way as well.

Kennedy's team almost always goes to states, and the coaches have said that they would be "ashamed" if the team did not make States. Their coaches also strongly encourage hard work and staying on-topic, though they are not the best enforcers of these values because people actually watch Starcraft in practice and are not punished.

From 2007 to 2012, the team has been known as the "Nerd Herd," with their team T-shirts reflecting that - the 2012 shirt had cows with glasses, and said "Nerd Herd." However, the coaches have specifically said "No Nerd Herd" for 2013. This caused some anger among the people who were on the team in 2012.

Results

Season	Regionals	States	Nationals
2005	-	8th (388)	-
2008	-	2nd	22nd
2013	-	6th (305)	-
2014	-	6th (239)	-
2015	2nd (95)	6th (294)	-
2021	-	8th (195)	-