Homecoming. By definition Homecoming is a celebration. Now in High School, I thought Homecoming couldn’t be more awesome, I was in SGA, I was on top of the world, I was planning the coolest Homecoming ever to happen to a high school. Boy was I wrong. Collegiate Homecoming celebrations are on a whole other scale, they embody the true meaning of Homecoming.
As mentioned, I attend the University of Central Florida, this great nation’s second largest university, and the best damn school in the nation. In the Spring of 2012 I was encouraged to apply to be on the Executive Board for UCF Homecoming, with my “jump on every opportunity” attitude I did just that and earned myself the position at the Registered Student Organization Relations Director and was charged with the task of attempting to engage more that 500 organization in Homecoming happenings, obviously not all of them participated but none the less I was part of a team that put on one of America’s most prestigious campus programs. It was truly life changing. I’ll explain that next. The feeling of bringing something to a university of our caliber, as a measly undergraduate was mind blowing to me, they trusted 13 students to put on this massive week. And we did, Homecoming came in October and we crushed it, blew it out of the water, but, I found myself constantly asking, why are we not doing this bigger, how do we make this better. You see, I’m what I affectionately call a pusher, I like to push things, people (sometimes in the literal sense), projects, programs as far as they go to make them reach their full potential, and leading into UCF Homecoming in 2012 I thought we were, but that was false, there’s always bigger, better, more exciting.
Fast forward to January 2013, I’m sitting in my fraternity house, talking about Homecoming and I decide that I want to make this bigger, I want more for students. So, I took the leap of faith and applied to be the UCF Homecoming Student Director, whom oversees every part of planning, preparation and execution of Homecoming, from managing directors of individual events to signing on the dotted line to spend half a million dollars.
In February our previous Homecoming Student Director informed me that she selected me for the position, she scared the daylights out of me and I still resent her for that but I could’t believe it. Not a moment later, the planning began and I tattooed three words in my head, bigger, everyone, movement. Homecoming needed to be bigger, a campus of 60,000+ students needed a bigger program. Everyone, each and every student pays $10.72 per credit hour for activities, like Homecoming, which amounts to about $128.64, on average, per student, therefore I said, everyone pays, everyone gets engaged. Movement, Homecoming is not a single event, it’s a week of celebrating and embracing every fiber of pride you have for UCF, it is, what it means to be a UCF Knight, enter the movement, we will create an atmosphere that evokes more pride on our campus than ever before. I want students to want to come to campus for no reason other than it’s Homecoming week and it’s freakin awesome.
Before I start ranting and raving about UCF Homecoming a little foreground. We have 7 large events, 13 Directors that I oversee, 1 Graduate Assistant Alex, 1 Advisor Haley who I report to and a plethora of other professional staff that I get the pleasure of driving absolutely insane. We have a Service Day, Concert Knight, Skit Knight, Movie Knight, Comedy Knight, Spirit Splash, and Homecoming Football Game where we crown out King and Queen. Now, as I go on about Homecoming there are major details I will leave out because what fun would it be to give away the cool secrets like theme, who’s going to literally bring down the house for Concert Knight and who’s going to make 10,000 people laugh on Comedy Knight.
Do Something Crazy. 