All across the country, high school football stadiums are back in action, with parents, students, and boosters turning out to root root root for the home team. Whether covered with stadium blankets and drinking hot chocolate from Thermos bottles or in shorts and T shirts and swigging back bottled water and Coca Cola products, there is no question that high school football is an incredibly popular national pastime.
It doesn t matter if your team is on its way to the state championship or in the habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory: there is, for any high school team, One Big Game during every season. Homecoming events actually began on college campuses, with the University of Missouri staging the first such event in 1891, followed by Baylor University in Waco, Texas in 1909. While the Mizzou event was primarily geared toward welcoming back graduates for a series of pleasant parties, Baylor was the first school in the nation to center its homecoming weekend around a sporting event. As Baylor is located in Texas, where football is the undisputed King of Sports, the idea caught on among other Texas schools. Much as America adopted the legend of the cowboy from the Lone Star State, it also espoused the idea of homecoming festivities, and by the mid 1920s, colleges across the United States began offering homecoming opportunities to their own graduates.
Now, America in the early 20th century was primarily an agrarian community, and most of those who weren t farmers worked in some type of industrial or service capacity. In other words, not every young American was going to college and when they did, they dressed up, though I ll save that for another story. In fact, the majority of Americans did not finish high school. They went to work. Those who had the luxury of earning their high school diploma were looked upon in many communities with the same sort of awe reserved in the middle part of the 20th century for those who had earned their bachelor s degrees.
It only makes sense that high schools modeled themselves after their more educated big brothers. Sororities and fraternities popped up in high schools, and homecoming weekends became as revered as Reunions for some Ivy Leaguers.
Homecoming allowed graduates and students to rub elbows. One hundred years ago, this might have resulted in the chance for a student to meet future employer. While I suppose that such an opportunity is a possibility today, homecomings really stand for graduates as an occasion during which to remember the good, old days days of youth and indestructibility, without all the pressure that a class reunion provides. After all, at a homecoming football game, there is no booklet published containing all of the accomplishments of the rest of the class.
For students, homecoming usually includes a Spirit Week, which is comprised of competitions between the freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior classes and between various on campus organizations. There is also the annual football game, which is set apart from those during the regular season by extra sign painting efforts by the cheerleaders, a particularly well rehearsed halftime show by the band drill team twirlers drum and bugle corps, etc., and especially in the South the ubiquitous Homecoming mum. Girls measure the worth of their boyfriends against each other by the size and cost of their mum corsage, much in the way they will later with engagement rings, houses, cars, and investment jewelry.
Speaking of investment jewelry: during Homecoming there falls the perfect time for mothers and fathers of sons or sons themselves to invest in jewelry. This is the perfect opportunity to purchase his first set of cuff links, which are sure to be treasured through years of high school, college, career, and fatherhood.
The culmination of the week is usually the homecoming dance. The plusses of such a dance are the chance to see the students dressed up, to enjoy their excitement at the idea of their Big Evening Out, and that such an event may be enjoyed by all whether the football team is winning or losing.
Although some schools allow kids to dress down for their Homecoming events, most events include girls in cocktail dresses and boys wearing at least jackets and ties. I ve heard parents say that they would prefer to buy their sons jackets at this stage rather than suits; the boys grow at such alarming rates that it is often more cost effective to do so. However, while you can economize with a blazer or jacket that fits well and looks well but is not tailored personally for him, you can make him look very expensive with the right accessories.
Your son may outgrow certain items of clothing, but he will not outgrow a classic necktie and a pair of cufflinks. Be certain that you choose a classic tie maybe a stripe, which will allow him both to appear traditional and fashion forward in the ironic preppy style that is so popular these days.
Make this event special by investing in a pair of classic cufflinks. These will carry him through many years of special events, and will start him off as a young man who thinks about the details. Engraved with his initial and presented in a special box that includes the date, this will be a gift that will keep him coming home long after football season is over.
Author Resource:
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