Homecoming, a tradition on just about every college campus in the United States, is celebrated with zest as graduates and former students return to renew fond college memories--and the University of Illinois boasts being one of the first institutions to implement the annual alumni celebration. The fall of 2008 marks the 98th year for the campus-wide celebration which began the weekend of October 14-16, 1910.

The Homecoming celebration at Illinois was conceived in 1909 by students C.F. (Dab) Williams and W. Elmer Ekblaw, members of the Shield and Trident senior society. The Shield and Trident Society joined with another senior society, Phoenix, to organize the three-day event and submitted a petition to the University Council of Administrators asking the weekend to be set aside for the First Annual Fall Homecoming. Once the proposal was approved, the senior societies, having instituted the movement, resigned their claims to the Illinois Union, which has organized the Homecoming gala ever since.

At the center of the weekend festivities was the Illinois-Chicago football game on Saturday, Oct. 15, 1910. Illinois, under the leadership of Captain Glenn D. Butzer, scored the first victory over Chicago--by a score of 3-0--on a drop-kick by Otto Seiler. More than 1,500 graduates returned to Champaign-Urbana at the original Homecoming, one-third of all its graduates.

The weekend activities included a Varsity "Alumni" baseball game, an interclass track meet, a band reunion, a "rooter" section at the game (which later became "Block I") and a Hobo band parade. The Hobo band parade was put on by members of the senior class who paraded from Green Street to Illinois Field. A prize for the most comical costume of the day was given, setting the stage for modern "tailgreat" contests and celebrations. This year, Illinois hosts Minnesota in the 96th Homecoming celebration on Oct. 11.

For more information, see the Origin of University of Illinois Homecoming a 2005 research paper by John Franch, UI Archivist.