Homecoming season

Photo by Nathan Pace Linton’s homecoming princess and queen last year with Morgan Raybern (left) as princess. She was escorted by grandfather William Raybern. Haley Rose was named queen and was escorted by her brother Brayton Rose.

It is that time of the calendar. Homecoming season.

Eastern Greene just had its homecoming this past Saturday. Linton is tonight and Shakamak is pretty much all weekend long, I guess. Dugger Union will have its next Saturday.

I have never really stopped to think why homecoming is a big deal. It just is. When it a football team or basketball team loses on homecoming the defeat seems to reverberate for longer time. You didn’t just lose the game. You lost your homecoming game.

Back in the day when I was skinnier than a twig at Center Grove High School, I somehow made both the Fall and Winter Homecoming Court my senior year.

I was never Homecoming King but it was really cool to have people cheering for me to win. My high school friends called me “Nate-Dawg” because it is funny to make a skinny white boy from suburbia sound like he is a tough rapper. At the halftime ceremony, people started chanting “Nate-Dawg, Nate-Dawg.” It was a moment I was not ready for it as I could barely stand up after hearing such support. My ego went to a whole new level in the stratosphere that day. Perhaps it is a good thing I did not win.

Not every school celebrates homecoming the same. Linton only has a homecoming queen and no king. I have never heard from anyone why that is the case. Shakamak is unique in that its homecoming is not centered around a game but a banquet. Dugger’s homecoming was a volleyball game last season as the football team did not play a down in 2020.

Some schools give the girls a chance to play on the football field in the annual powderpuff football game. That was a big deal at my school.

In college at Ball State, homecoming appeared to be taken over by the fraternities and sororities as they competed in events leading up to the football game.

As a photographer, homecoming events are something I have been capturing for four publications now. The title of being homecoming king or queen can be forgotten quickly, but trust me, it is an emotional moment. Photographers, myself included, are all about capturing that emotion.

May the homecomings this week be something the kids never forget.

Nathan is the Sports Editor for the Greene County Daily World His “Low Budget Sports Show” airs weekly on Facebook Live.