Oct 19, 2009
The Garner High School student body held a parade for their homecoming on Friday, Oct. 2
Hundreds of students will spend hundreds of hours designing and building floats. The school will vote on which boy and girl will represent their student body as “King & Queen.” There will be a dance, a pep rally, and even a parade leading up to the game. Parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends will fill the stands to capacity on an October Friday to witness the pageantry. Alumni from classes past will travel from miles around for an annual outdoor reunion under the stadium lights at their alma mater. It promises to be the largest crowd for a football game all season. But why?
It’s Homecoming.
The University of Missouri is credited as the originator of this annual event that has become a staple of college and high school football schedules throughout the United States. Mizzou was opening a new stadium in 1911, and the University’s Athletics Director invited thousands of alumni to attend and participate in dances, pep rallies and parades. The Tigers played their rivals, the University of Kansas. The event was a huge success, and served as a model for other colleges to follow.
For those in the bleachers, homecoming games are evenings filled to the brim with entertainment. The game is the central focus for most attendees, but there is so much more to take in. Visiting our alma maters, we catch up with old friends that we haven’t seen in awhile. We smile and laugh at the elaborate floats that are towed around the track by family pick-up trucks, deciding which one we think is the best. And we cheer for the homecoming court, the King, Queen, Princes and Princesses that represent our school.
Of course, coaches and players often consider all of the surrounding activities of homecoming mere afterthoughts. There is, after all, a game to win. With such a huge crowd, and such immense energy at the stadium, no one wants to see their team lose a homecoming game. You’ll rarely hear this sentiment from me, but in this one case, winning is not the most important goal of this game. The primary purpose of homecoming is to bring the community together.
The 50-plus players and coaches at Enloe High School will certainly remember their loss to Wake Forest-Rolesville in October 2008. However, for hundreds of Eagles students, parents and alumni, the outcome of that game is irrelevant. Due to low ticket sales for the Enloe homecoming dance, all homecoming festivities were cancelled last season. There were girls and boys who had no choice but to cancel an eagerly anticipated first date. Spirit committees never got their chance to show off their floats. Homecoming was sorely missed.
The joys of homecoming are shared by all. Students who don’t attend another game all year make certain that they are in attendance on homecoming night. The entire community has a stake in what happens at their local high school on that fun-filled Friday each fall. The tradition of homecoming continues because it is one that is vital to the school, and to the community. New practices are sometimes created too. Nearly every school has a tradition or two unique to their homecoming game.
At Jordan High School in Durham, homecoming is also an annual costume party. It started in the 1980s when the Falcons’ homecoming game fell on Halloween. The Jordan band performed their halftime show dressed in Halloween costumes, instead of their marching band uniforms to celebrate the holiday. Even when the big night doesn’t fall on Halloween, wearing costumes is a tradition at Jordan’s Homecoming.
This year, homecoming traditions old and new, will be honored at schools across the Tar Heel State, so make sure you don’t miss something special. Buy a ticket to the dance; take your friends and family to the parade; put on that costume and wear it all day Friday; and get in the stands to cheer for your school on a night when the community comes home together.
Adam Harris' column "Bleacher Banter" appears each month in VYPE High School Sports Magazine.
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