UT’s 101st Homecoming Week kicks off Sunday

On Sunday, “Homecoming 101: Intro to Rocky Top” events will begin and continue throughout the week, leading up to the Homecoming parade from Circle Park to the Strip on Friday and the football game against the Golden Eagles of Southern Mississippi on Saturday.

For the first time in 30 years, the Homecoming parade is returning to Cumberland Ave.

Nate Hogan, president of the Student Homecoming Committee, says that the city of Knoxville asked for the parade route to be moved to the Strip to promote more local involvement.

“It will be nice to see the integration with the Knoxville community,” he said.

The Student Homecoming Committee is one of the many campus organizations that worked to plan various events.

According to Hogan, they began preparing for the events in March, and the University Homecoming Committee began planning this year’s Homecoming as soon as the last one ended.

There are 46 individual events taking place all over campus over the span of next week. One of which is the Slime Trivia, which Hogan is particularly looking forward to.

“[The] Slime Trivia, which happens on Wednesday, is going to be where contestants will be asked trivia questions about random topics, some even UT related,” he continues, “and if they get it wrong, they get slimed!”

There will be other events throughout the week for students who do not want to get messy. On Monday, the Black Cultural Programming Committee will host the Homecoming Comedy Show, the Homecoming Fashion Show, which is hosted by People of Style and Education, will take place on Thursday and there will be number of tailgating events on game day. A full list of these events can be found on the Homecoming events page.

The parade on Friday will feature fierce float-creating competition between a number of student organizations, as well as the Little Vol Walk for children under 10-years-old to ride along in the parade and then head to Little Vols at the Ballpark afterwards. Leading the parade will be Del and Dane Bryant. Their parents were the acclaimed songwriters Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, who penned “Rocky Top”.

Due to the parade float line-up at 3 p.m., two lanes of Lake Loudoun Blvd will be closed for an hour. Shortly after that, Volunteer Blvd from Lake Loudoun Blvd to Cumberland Ave will be closed from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Cumberland Ave will be closed from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. for the parade and post-parade celebration.

For more information check out the University of Tennessee Homecoming page.

Featured image by Jenna Beaudin

Edited by Taylor Owens