Traditionally, Homecoming is an event or series of events meant to both encourage school spirit and welcome back students and alumni. This year’s Homecoming Week at the University of Tampa began on Oct. 17th with a kick-off event in the Vaughn lobby. The main event was a Greek God/Goddess pageant.
Sophomore biology major Ebonie Carter was the Homecoming Kick-Off Chairperson. She described the pageant as “basically a take on a beauty pageant.”
“There was a costume portion and a talent portion, where the competitors were encouraged to be entertaining,” Carter said. “The conclusion was a question and answer portion, with questions such as ‘What do you like about UT?’ designed to get people thinking.”
Those components really enabled the judges to narrow down the competitors. For additional entertainment for the students, there was a photo booth and a henna artist. Students each received a bright red Homecoming 2012 t-shirt with a Spartan logo on the back.
Carter said, “Student Productions ordered more shirts for this year, but still ran out.” Considering they started with about 900 shirts, the event was highly attended.
The festivities continued the following evening in the Vaughn Lobby with Casino Night, which drew a large crowd. There were casino games like blackjack, poker and slot machines. What was the incentive to win? About $2000 in prizes including: Beats headphones, a tablet and a Keurig coffee maker just to name a few items.
Friday night’s activities began with a homecoming parade. Many student organizations were represented. Students flocked to the Stadium Center for the tailgate which had a BBQ, caricature artist, balloon artist and face painter. While enjoying hamburgers, baked potatoes and corn, students could listen to a live local band. Students walked away with a wide variety of balloon animals. Those who came to the tailgate even received red foam fingers. The night continued with the Women’s Volleyball Game in the Martinez gym.
Saturday, the Spartan Games were held outside of the McNiff Fitness Center. Freshman and juniors could compete against sophomores and seniors in several field events. Participants received bandannas in either red or black depending on their team. Later that evening, the band Green River Ordinance performed for the students in the Vaughn Courtyard.
Josh Jacobs, a junior graphic design major and the marketing chair of Student Productions, described the way in which the organization worked to get students involved in this year’s homecoming. Seemingly a majority of the advertising for this year’s homecoming was done through social media.
“There were Facebook events for each day of homecoming and about 400-500 people said that they would be attending each individual day,” Jacobs said. “I was responsible for maintaining all the social media aspects, including posting on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.”
Kayla Roy, a senior marketing major and Special Events Chair on the Student Productions Executive Board, stated that one of the goals of the Spartan Games was getting students involved that were not part of organizations.
“We incorporated the Spartan Games and had it with odd versus even graduation years, so anyone could come over and start playing,” Roy said.
Jacobs also talked about making this year’s homecoming better than previous years. He said, “The Homecoming Board tried to do a lot of very different and very cool events this semester. Even though last year’s homecoming was successful, this year, we tried to take it to another level here on campus, more of a very wholesome and total experience.”
“We wanted to incorporate a few more events and better the events from last year in order to make them into traditions. Traditions are what build to create school spirit over time. If a school has a tradition that everyone knows about, then everyone is more likely to participate in it every year,” Roy added. She said she is looking to have the parade become a tradition, as well as the Spartan Games.
Samantha Delle can be reached at samanthadelle@aol.com