A century of coming home to Mizzou
by Matt Eisenbath, posted Nov. 8, 2011
October 15, 2011, marked the 100th year since the first homecoming at the University of Missouri. Students and alumni once again gathered this year to celebrate the event. Events such as talent, house decorations and float were carried on as usual, but organizations were excited to promote homecoming even more this year.
Mizzou has been credited as the founder of homecoming by many sources such as the game show “Jeopardy”, the television show “NCIS”, and board game “Trivial Pursuit.” The homecoming tradition is said to have started in 1911, stemming from an important rivalry game against the University of Kansas that was played in Columbia.
According to www.Mizzou.com, “Chester L. Brewer, MU's Director of Athletics, had a vision. His vision, to add some excitement to the rivalry, was to invite alumni to "come home" for the game.”
More than 9,000 fans attended the first homecoming game, which was played at the current Stankowski field, which was then named Rollins field. The football game ended in a low-scoring 3-3 tie. Along with the football game, Mizzou hosted a parade and a spirit rally to celebrate the event that year.
The spirit rally and parade are still an ongoing part of the homecoming celebration at Mizzou, and many other universities have now adopted the basic Missouri model for homecoming celebrations. Some students consider Homecoming to be the most important event of the year for Mizzou.
“It was one of the most unforgettable moments of my life,” said Brett Waddell, MU freshman. “I really didn’t know what to expect, but it was everything I expected and more.”
Recently, Mizzou officials have strayed away from claiming that Mizzou hosted the first ever homecoming. This is mostly due to other schools claiming that they were the first to celebrate the event and the fact that it is hard to define what can be called homecoming.
Many people, including the assistant vice chancellor of alumni relations, Todd McCubbin, believe we should focus more on the 100 years of tradition aspect of homecoming.
“Lately, we have gotten away from the first homecoming established thing,” McCubbin said. “I think it is all about celebrating Mizzou and celebrating Mizzou tradition. Homecoming is the first big thing that happens on campus, and it really brings everyone together in the Mizzou family.”
McCubbin was very impressed with the turnout of students and alumni this year. He felt that it was nice to see so many people come out for the events, even though the football team was not playing the number one team in the country, as was the case last year when Mizzou played Oklahoma.
“The overwhelming turnout for homecoming and all the activities really stood out to me this year,” McCubbin said. “Everyone obviously came out just to celebrate the great Mizzou tradition, and not necessarily only the football game.”
A lot of work goes into the homecoming celebrations by students and organizations at MU. First and foremost, students affiliated with a greek house have to create pomp boards for house decorations. These pomp boards are made up of rolled tissue paper that is stuck to a board with a mixture of water and flour. It takes thousands of these individual tissues being pomped in order to complete the house decorations. From pomping to practicing dance for talent night, the students are an essential part of the homecoming preparation and activities. A tri-director of the Homecoming Steering Committee, Brandon Thiel, was impressed with what he saw from the students this year.
“Excitement from the students is what really stood out this year,” Thiel said. “Homecoming is an exciting time and also a competition in many ways from student groups, and the students all brought their A-game this year. Everything looked amazing, and as a result the judges had the best and hardest job deciding where to place everyone.”
This year the events of homecoming were in mostly the same order as previous years. To participate in homecoming, every fraternity is paired with a sorority. Each fraternity and sorority pairing competes with every other pairing in the homecoming events in order to win homecoming. Other non-greek affiliates, such as resident halls and organizations, can also compete against each other in some of the celebratory events.
The week kicked off with the talent and skit competitions on Monday. Every greek pairing comes up with a themed skit that they perform in front of a crowd at Jesse Hall. The skits continue on through Wednesday. The difference between this year and the previous years is that normally there would be a finals night for skit on Thursday. This year everyone had to wait until the following Sunday to find out any results.
The next homecoming event, house decorations, takes place on the Friday night of homecoming week. This is the time when all of the pomping pays off for the students. Every greek fraternity and sorority pairing organizes and builds their pomp boards to create a colorful and creative scene. Later that night, mini skits are performed by the pairings in front of their scene. This event always draws a very large crowd made up of alumni, students and children. The homecoming spirit rally is also usually held on the Friday before the football game.
On Saturday morning, the long list of homecoming preparations and events comes to an end. Saturday is when all of the organizations present their floats to walk in the parade. The parade is a large attraction for people coming to see what homecoming is all about. Saturday is also football game day, which is most of the reason homecoming even exists. The score for this year’s game was lopsided with Missouri beating Iowa State 52-10.
On Sunday, every organization finally gets to hear what they have been waiting for. Sunday night is announcements night, so every organization, greek and non-greek, finds out how they placed in the events of the year and overall. The Homecoming Steering Committee is in charge of tallying the points that the judges gave each pairing and organization. The overall winners this year for the greek pairings were Alpha Delta Pi, Alpha Gamma Rho and Beta Sigma Psi.
The celebration is just as important to the alumni as it is for the students. That is one characteristic of a Mizzou homecoming that has become increasingly important, the alumni get involved. Mizzou has made it a priority to continue Chester Brewer’s tradition of asking alumni to participate in the event. Laura Turk is a recent graduate of Mizzou and attended Mizzou’s homecoming this year.
“The best thing about coming back as an alum for Homecoming is knowing that all of the traditional events will be there year after year,” Turk said. “My favorite part isn't a specific event but just knowing that you will see so many familiar faces and feel welcome as an alum, regardless of whether you just graduated or are an alum of 30-plus years.”
Homecoming has become an event of service and community participation for the students and university. Students participate in one of the largest blood drives in the nation and Tigers Taming Hunger, among other events. Tigers Taming Hunger is a large can food operation ran by Mizzou students that donate all cans collected to central Missouri food banks. Thiel believes that student participation is at an all-time high and says homecoming has been a great experience during his four years at MU.
“I think Homecoming is a time tested tradition that does so much for our alumni and community members and has evolved into a service recently with outstanding student participation,” Thiel said. “I can’t say I have a favorite aspect, but Homecoming is the most fun I’ve ever had as a student, and I think that is what I really like about Homecoming.”
Homecoming at Mizzou is a proud tradition. One hundred years later, MU still owns the largest Homecoming event in the nation. The floats, skits, campus decorations, students and alumni all come together for one large, meaningful celebration.
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