A Brief History of “Homecoming”

Graphic by Catherine Bowers

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Happy HOCO Queen’s! The Watson is back for another amazing year and we are so excited to start sharing some fun articles this year! To start things off, we have to celebrate everyone’s favourite time of year: HOCO, and since this is a history blog, please enjoy A brief history of HOCO!

“Homecoming” has become a tradition enjoyed by not only university students and their alumni, but in North America is now an event for veterans, high schoolers and church groups. Although it means different things to different people and can involve an endless variety of traditions, the concept is generally considered to have had a singular origin.

Jeopardy! Trivial Pursuit, and the NCAA have all recognized that the tradition of university “Homecoming” as we commonly think of it today was invented by the University of Missouri. “Mizzou” is credited with creating the tradition in 1911 when the university’s athletic director and football coach Chester Brewer sent an invitation for all alumni to “come home” for the school’s football game against their rival, the University of Kansas. The game drew a turn out of over 9000 and instantly became an annual tradition for the school. Other universities adopted the tradition and its popularity as an annual rite at universities has continued to spread. Of course, with anything as popular as homecoming, there are other contenders for having invented the tradition. Several other universities have also laid claim to the first ever homecoming tradition such as the University of Michigan, Northern Illinois University, and Indiana University. All of these schools had events in the late 19th century that combined alumni returning to their campuses along with football games. Homecoming games became popular destinations for people to reminisce and share nostalgia for their alma mater over a well fought game. However, Missouri University’s event remains credited with having been by far the closest in circumstance to the way in which many schools celebrate “homecoming”.

It was also during this period in the late 19th and early 20th century when the concept of homecoming wasn’t simply tied to hard fought football games but was associated with actual fighting. After World War 1, the concept of a celebratory homecoming also became associated with soldiers returning home from war. This association was cemented by the end of World War 2. Many of the photographs taken of soldiers rejoining their loved ones after 1945 are entitled “homecoming.” It was after WW2 that the specific term “homecoming” starting to enter the lexicon of Canadian Universities including Queens.

At Queens, there had been an alumni weekend that had been celebrated for several generations. In the 1950’s that annual weekend began to be colloquially referred to by students as “homecoming”. The 1950’s represented a time where technological innovation allowed for American culture to more significantly influence Canadians. But this was also a time in which many young Canadian men – who had fought alongside Americans in the war – were returning home having picked up new concepts and traditions.

In Canada, university homecoming weekends continue to be celebrations where a football game is the focal point of the weekend. Some Canadian high schools also offer homecomings, but that is a much more popular tradition in America. Some maritime provinces have “come home year” encouraging people who move away to come visit, but these tend to be one-off celebrations rather than annual traditions.

In America, the homecoming idea has been much more extensively adopted with towns and churches offering their versions of homecomings. Homecoming has evolved over the generations but the thread that has always remained is that it represents a coming together of many generations to celebrate their communal history.