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Oct 8, 2009 9:47 pm US/Central
Good Question: How Did Homecoming Start?
(WCCO)
In high schools and at universities around Minnesota, this week is homecoming week. A time to gather at a football game, march in a parade and go to a school dance. But how did the idea of homecoming get its start?
It's controversial. The idea of an alumni football game predates the idea of homecoming. The annual Harvard-Yale game attracted alums to campus dating back to the 1870's. But the concept of the first collegiate homecoming event, with activities around the game, started in 1909 at Baylor University.
But after the first year, Baylor stopped doing it. In 1910, two University of Illinois students came up with a comprehensive plan for organizing the first homecoming party.
According to the University of Illinois archives, the students got the idea while sitting "on the old YMCA steps discussing ways and means of contributing to their Alma Mater. They agreed that a football game should be the centerpiece of the celebration, serving as a 'magnet' to attract the alumni."
The reason for getting alumni to come home? Money. By attracting the alums to campus, getting them excited about events and the school, it was more likely the alums would stay connected and donate money.
After that 1910 celebration, the homecoming concept spread quickly. The University of Minnesota's first homecoming dates to 1914. The first year had an alumni dinner, a concert and a dance surrounding the game.
"1917 was when our house front decorations started," said Molly Gale, Homecoming Coordinator at the University of Minnesota.
Fraternities along University Avenue would decorate the front of their houses with giant displays, often mocking the homecoming football opponent. The homecoming parade followed two years later.
In 1924, the homecoming football game was the first game to be played at Memorial Stadium, located where McNamara Alumni Center now stands.
The idea of homecoming was so successful at the collegiate level that high schools jumped on the bandwagon, adding the same idea for September/October games.
Washburn High School in Minneapolis has been having homecomings since at least 1939, according to school yearbooks.
"It's really important to draw people in. They come from suburbs, come from near and far, and we exploit that," said Carol Markham-Cousins, Washburn's Principal.
For an Alumni Foundation dinner held at the school this week, Markham-Cousins said that a couple who met in school in 1939, 60 years ago, is coming back home.
"It's cool," she said.
There's no science to picking the homecoming game, as it's not the first home game of the season, nor is it often the second. It's a game in September or October, in most cases.
At the University of Minnesota, "We typically pick a conference game that will be competitive but isn't too early/late in the season which is how we landed on Purdue this year," said Gale.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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