Discovering the past:
How we used to party
■Although some traditions
for homecoming week have
died out, the football frenzy
continues to make history
By Jeff DeMoss
for the Emerald
The campus air is crackling with
the energy of homecoming week the
way bonfires used to crackle on
campus at this time of year.
Once again, it’s time for that fall tra
dition that gives us all an excuse to
party in the name of school spirit, de
spite our busy schedules. And if we
look back through the years, we find
that students and alumni alike have
avidly celebrated homecoming since
the University’s humble beginnings.
The history of homecoming at the
University is rich and storied, and
few people in town know that histo
ry better than Keith Richard, former
archivist for the University Alumni
Association, now retired.
“The first homecoming wasn’t so
big,” Richard said. “The first grad
uating class, which consisted of five
people, came back to watch the
1879 commencement, and that was
about it.”
The celebration has obviously
grown since 1878. The major con
tributor to this growth appeared
around 1912, when football began
to take center stage at the festivities.
Homecoming celebrations start
ed getting big in the 1920s. Special
ly arranged trains brought people
from Portland and other nearby
towns down to Eugene for an alum
ni luncheon and the football game.
r
“It was like a big parade from the
railroad station to the luncheon to
the game,” Richard said.
In the 1930s, students began organ
izing concerts for the celebration
each year, usually after the game.
They would get some of the most
popular musicians of the day, such as
Ella Fitzgerald and the Supremes.
“Nowadays, big-time names like
that are too expensive to hire,”
Richard said.
However, the late-night student tra
dition lives on through dances at the
EMU Ballroom each year. Some
homecoming traditions are no longer
around because they’ve been out
lawed, such as the bonfire, which was
an annual favorite among students.
The biggest one ever, according to
Richard, was in 1915 out in front of
what is now the Knight Library.
“It was four stories high,”
Richard said. “It burned for three
nights and two days.” City ordi
nance now prohibits such blazes,
but the tradition was cleverly rein
carnated in the 1970s in the form of
a “wiener roast.”
Another pastime that might get
one arrested nowadays is the “noise
parade. ” On the night before the big
game, members of campus fraterni
ties would march around the cam
pus area competing for the title of
noisiest group.
Enthusiasm for homecoming died
off in the late 1960s as students began
to challenge such traditions in the
name of change, but the celebration
was revived in the mid-1970s.
Turn to History, page 17B
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