Over The Pylon

It’s Homecoming Week, Ball State!

This year’s Homecoming theme is There’s No Place Like Homecoming and let me tell you they are really going all out on the Wizard of Ozness on campus. So let’s take some time to talk about some of everyone’s favorite old events and traditions and some of the new things appearing in Homecoming week.

Red Brick Relays

This is a new one this year. It has replaced the residence hall scavenger hunt event. The relays this year were a series of challenges related to the Wizard of Oz including racing around in ruby slippers, stuffing overalls with straw, and a Fear Factor style challenge that required reaching your hand into a bin full of bugs to reach the object at the bottom. A little Cowardly Lion courage challenge right there. The relays are another residence hall event and it definitely meets the quirkiness that residence hall freshmen and sophomores love. For a residence hall event, it’s definitely more crowd pleasing than the campus scavenger hunt. Thumbs up on this event Homecoming committee.

Homecoming Village

Homecoming takes over Martin St. and basically has a little pep rally in the street. The band, cheerleaders, and Code Red dancers come out to get the team hyped. And then the highlight is getting to hear people like Pete Lembo and Keith Wenning speak to the crowd. There are other activities to do such as a zip line, mechanical bull, photo booth, and student bands performing. Another perk is that many of the businesses in the village offer food specials during that time. This was the second year of the Homecoming Village and all I hope for next year is warmer weather. Cold weather and waiting in long lines to do any of the activities make it a little less than exciting to be there.

Residence Halls Dinner

If any of you are familiar with Noyer dining hall, they shut down all normal food operations and go balls to the wall Homecoming themed dinner. We’re talking dining employees dressed in the creepiest ways as Wizard of Oz characters, plush dogs in baskets on the tables, multiple ice sculptures, and hundreds of dollars on Wizard of Oz cutouts and decorations. The food is alright, but it just has clever thematic names for otherwise cold and normal dining hall food. You also wait in line for about 40 minutes just to get your dinner. It’s cute and Homecoming magical, but the food isn’t any better and you wait in line far too long.

Talent Search

Why is Ball State so talented?! Seriously, where do these people come from? I’m not sure why Air Jam sells out in Emens and this show doesn’t because the talent here far exceeds Air Jam. The winners this year at the talent show were contemporary clog dancers. It was straight up hip-hop dancing with clog shoes. How cool is that?! This is probably my most highly recommended Homecoming event because it gets under appreciated. The talent and the actual production of the show is just awesome. Now if only I could actually make it in the damn show…

Bed Races

Bed races were on Wednesday this year. Like what in the world were you thinking Homecoming committee? That was the greatest Friday afternoon activity ever. Any way, it was the usual crazy costumes and beds crashing down Riverside. If you’ve never seen the bed races, I recommend it even though Wednesday is a really stupid day to come into town to watch them.

Air Jam

If you’re Greek, you love it. If you’re not Greek, you probably couldn’t care less about it. If you’ve never seen Air Jam, it’s the annual lip-sync contest. Last year I was on the only residence hall team to compete and it was awesome. But no one really cared about us because the event is so overpowered by the Greeks. Give all organizations a chance to be represented or make it a Greek-only event. Air Jam sold out early in the week so it still reigns as the most popular Homecoming event.

Parade, Tailgate, and Football

I decided to just group these together because they all kind of mesh together into one exhausting Saturday. The parade is a great way for the community and alumni to get involved in the Homecoming festivities, but I think most of the student population is still hungover from the night before and don’t put the parade on their priority list. But don’t worry- they’re up in time to tailgate! Oh Ball State. Just trying to maintain Ball So Hard University. Hopefully they can stumble their way into the Scheu on Saturday because it’s Operation 20K day! Athletics has a goal of 20,000 fans to fill the stadium as we take on Kent State. Will you be there?

Happy Homecoming Ball State! See you at the game! Chirp Chirp!

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