Homecoming pageantry enlivens campus, teams

Seventy-nine years ago, Homecoming was quite different.

Back in 1925, the year Homecoming at Duke was conceived, Duke had just become a University. West Campus had not even been built and the Blue Devils played football on Hanes Field, a simple patch of grass in the back of East Campus.

That year, senior Edward W.H. Lagerstedt, a transfer student who had come all the way from Brockton, Mass., in his sophomore year, led Trinity on the gridiron. A versatile offensive back, Lagerstedt was also an active member of the biology and physics clubs.

There were striking similarities between the 1925 and 2004 football teams, however—both struggled on the field and suffered from lagging attendance.

“[1925 was] the most disastrous season from start to finish of any team to represent the institution since the reestablishment of football in 1920,” the Chanticleer proclaimed. “The chief cause of the failures of the Trinity team to annex victories was its lack of an efficient aerial attack and its inability to break up the forward passing attacks of the opposing teams.”

With the team in shambles, school officials needed to find new ways to generate fan support. They decided to expand upon a tradition that had been created the previous season, when a pep rally prior to the season finale against North Carolina had whipped Trinity supporters into a raucous frenzy.

“At this game more spirit was shown by Trinity students than has ever been shown at his institution,” the Chanticleer reported. “All restraint was cast with the hats to the winds, and alumni and undergraduates joined in the frantic contortions of a saddled steer when expressing their emotions after an advantage gained by Trinity.”

Although the Blue Devils went on to lose the ’24 matchup against the Tar Heels, campus officials had every reason to believe similar support could be generated by a “homecoming” game, where alumni would return to Durham to cheer on their team.

The crescendo of the festivities was once again the Friday night Homecoming Show, and the 1959 celebration did not fail to disappoint. The Duke Ambassadors, the school’s jazz band, opened the show, and several East Campus dormitories (which were occupied exclusively by women) performed skits mocking Army, Duke’s Saturday opponent.

Brown’s sketch, “This is the Army,” took home first place honors, and Sigma Nu fraternity won a blue ribbon for the extravagant display it created for the float-building contest. The displays constructed to rally school spirit varied greatly—some were built with simple chicken wire, while others were more lavish. Many were several stories high and sometimes featured moving parts and audio.

The evening concluded with the presentation of the Homecoming Court and the crowning of the Homecoming Queen. Each of the East Campus houses presented a candidate, and in 1959 Southgate resident Carol Corder was named Homecoming Queen. The football captain, first team All-American and future Duke head coach Mike McGee, presented the crown to Corder, who was crowned in front of 40,000 fans the next day.

The Blue Devils once again lost the Homecoming game, but the unfortunate result did not dampen evening’s revelries. An estimated 5,000 to 6,000 people attended the Homecoming Dance as Duke broke all of its unofficial dating records thanks to the eager Army cadets who had raided East Campus dormitories in an effort to find the female students who had been unable to procure dates.

Student interest in Homecoming took a dramatic turn in the late 1960s, when world events forced local issues to the back burner. In 1976, Dean of Cultural Affairs Ella Fountain Pratt, in an effort to revive Homecoming, explained the effects of the times.

“Everyone was so shocked by the assassination of the president and Martin Luther King, homecoming seems trivial,” Pratt said.

In 1970, homecoming died. That year, one dorm nominated John Terrell to the Homecoming Court. Although Terrell received twice as many votes as any other candidate, he was disqualified from the contest and Brown’s Christy Stauffer was declared the winner.

“It really didn’t bother me that I was not crowned Homecoming Queen,” Terrell said after the game. “I think everyone that voted for me stood up and cheered Saturday when I was introduced, so I guess they knew that I had gotten the most votes.”

The following Monday The Chronicle published an editorial that praised Terrell’s actions and derided the Homecoming pageant as “a continuing symbol of how women are viewed as objects in our society.... We believe the only constructive action that can be taken would be to end the annual Homecoming Queen Contest.”

Campus officials agreed, and no Homecoming show was held in 1971.

“By far it was one of the most enjoyable things I remember doing with a group at Duke,” Dean of Students Sue Wasiolek said during a 1983 effort to resurrect Homecoming display construction. “Groups often structured a party atmosphere around building the displays. Sometimes they would even have a band playing while they built.”

Homecoming has never been the same since. Over the past 30 years, various attempts have been made to revive the old traditions, but none have enjoyed any success and Duke may never again see the displays, banners, parades, pageants and school spirit that accompanied the previous Homecomings. To some, however, the end of Homecoming was inevitable.

“I think it was a natural phasing out,” Former Vice President for Student Affairs William Griffith told The Chronicle in 1978. “Many of the activities were for children and the public. In the late ’60s, the displays and the skills became kind of gross... some weren’t even subtle. It got to be embarrassing. I think Alumni Affairs was probably glad when the whole thing died a natural death.”