Homecoming celebrations offer UW-Madison students an opportunity to show school spirit and take a break from long hours of writing papers and cramming for midterms. ??
Homecoming traditions have evolved from old Halloween pranks back in the 1800s, before Madison had an official homecoming, to the parades and festivities that define homecoming today. In 1937 the Cardinal looked back on the early pranksters of Madison.??
\A nightshirt raid on Ladies' Hall [now Chadbourne Hall] was the granddaddy of present-day Wisconsin homecomings, back in the 1800s. Although the football celebration had not yet been born, Halloween served as an auspicious weekend for the lads from fraternal and other organizations to gather ?? and crash the Halloween party given exclusively for the girls in the dormitories.""??
One courageous man snuck into the laundry room and brought back some treasures to show the others.??
""Soon the lawn by the dormitory was strewn with gay-ninety underthings, all marked with the owners' names, and the raiders had a high time trying them on and carting them home in armfuls.""??
Later the raiders decided to return the articles with a $10 bill. The ladies and the dean, however, were not amused. The dean asked 35 men to leave school and the ladies barred them from their social affairs. ??
The first official homecoming was celebrated in 1911 and was quite controversial. A week before the game, UW staged a private investigation of Earl Pickering, the Minnesota football team captain. UW charged Pickering had played professional baseball the previous summer, causing him to be ineligible for the game. The investigation was successful and Pickering was ousted before the game. ??
In the 1920s a major event in the festivities was a huge bonfire and pep rally on what is now Library Mall. This celebration was extinguished in the mid '40s when the Madison Fire Department decided it had enough. ??
In 1941 Madison Police tried to subdue crowds of 15,000. The chaos started when two ""Pershing Rifles"" members set off two smoke pots rivaling the homecoming fire in intensity and crowd appeal as the Cardinal reported on the event. Police used tear gas bombs to try to control the crowd. One student ""wearing a celery corsage in his lapel protested, 'I've been fumigated.'""??
In 1949 Buckingham U. Badger, better known as Bucky, made his first appearance as Madison's mascot.
Junior Marci Van Adestine, co-chair of the homecoming committee, said she was excited about two new events featured this year: the volleyball tournament and the kick-off event. In terms of her favorite traditions she said, ""I love them [all] and they are all so great."" ??
Becci Menghini has been the Advisor for the homecoming committee for the past three years. She said that she likes the parade because ""it is a great way for students, alumni and the community to connect around a single event."" ??
