Last weekend, with East Lansing full of disappointed students from the University of Michigan, might have felt like the best weekend of the year for MSU students. Homecoming weekend, though, has the potential to be much, much better.
The Homecoming game is a big one for the football team under the Spartan Stadium lights. Having ESPN’s College GameDay in town puts MSU’s Homecoming on the national stage, in the public eye. After last week’s victory against U-M, there are some accusations of dirty play coming from Ann Arbor. For nearly a full week, the insults have flown back and forth between MSU and U-M students, alumni and fans.
Those insults have nothing to do with this week’s game against the University of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin fans who will descend on East Lansing for the game. Yes, the game this week has the potential to get just as ugly as the game against U-M. However, nobody — not the coaches, not the players, and certainly not the administration — wants students to castigate the other teams’ fans.
That’s not what Homecoming weekend is about. Yes, Homecoming is a time for students to be entertained. Homecoming weekend, though, is more than simply a massive amount of parties, college football and a parade down Grand River Avenue. For a weekend, Spartans young and old embrace the Spartan spirit.
It is a uniting and humbling experience.
When students graduate from MSU and leave East Lansing, it doesn’t mean MSU leaves them.
The university always will be a part of who students are because it’s where they made it through the good and bad.
Years from now, when current students are alumni, they might not remember their classes, the grades they got or their everyday experiences on campus, or who won the Homecoming game their freshman year. What they will remember, though, are the great times and connections they made at Homecoming.
For most students, Homecoming should be seen as an opportunity to have fun, connect with fellow Spartan alumni and ultimately make memories of their time at MSU. Not all student choose to be passionate about Homecoming, about connecting and learning lessons from alumni. Those who do, however, definitely get more out of the Homecoming experience.
And as for alumni, whether they graduated four years or 40 years ago, Homecoming truly is about coming home. It’s about coming back to East Lansing and MSU’s campus to relive the old memories of when they were students and connecting with the students who are making those same memories today.
Winning Saturday’s game certainly would bring students and alumni together more than a loss, but ultimately that’s not the whole point of Homecoming. Homecoming strengthens the bond between alumni and students, between the past and the present. A win would be nice, but a connection between students and alumni would last much, much longer.
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