In 1923, McKinley was renamed after Confederate poet Sidney Lanier in accordance with the District's practice of naming the junior schools after American authors.

Student leaders, including Homer Garcia, Edgar Lozano, Stephen Castro, and Irene Ramirez, challenged the authority of the school and staged a walkout that catapulted Sidney Lanier into the limelight and forced the district to adapt to changes.

Other alumni from that year went on to author books and became professors and writers (Rafael Castillo, Ignacio Garcia, David O. Martinez and Daniel Hernandez).

Rafael C. Castillo's (2023) "Dostoevsky on Guadalupe Street: Writings from the Edge" highlights some of those events and insight into the culture of social protest activity from a literary perspective.

Ultimately, the Vok represents an essential gear that would not function without support from its integral whole therefore analogous to a vocational student entering society and the workforce.

Afterward, both of the teams gathered in the center of Alamo Stadium, the place where this historic event was held, and took time to reflect on what this tradition meant to them, and how it felt to take part in this game.