Planning for Homecoming: Behind the Scenes

Students and faculty work hard to make homecoming a blast for the Campus Beautiful
Photo By Cassidy D’Angelo

Homecoming: Whether you are a student, an alumni, a member of our faculty and staff, or even people of the Athens community, it is something everyone knows about. No matter what position you take here at Concord, it’s something that most everyone looks forward to. 

    Homecoming is a time to reminisce about what your life used to be like for four years and to connect with old and new friends. It’s a time to kick back, relax and watch a great game of football. Everyone who attends the events and enjoys themselves rarely thinks about how much time and effort the organizers of these events have put into them. Concord’s Director of Student Affairs, Andrew Sulgit, explains how much planning and preparation that homecoming has so that it can become a reality for us students.   

    “That’s one of the things that I’m glad we’re having a forum to talk about this in, because I think a lot of the time people have no idea the behind-the-scene logistics, or the amount of people that it takes to really pull these things off year after year,” Sulgit states. 

    So what does it take? Sulgit says, “I handle a lot of the administrative end on the contractual side. That can include everything from actually signing the contracts to when the vendors and entertainers have specific things they need. They may need this specific power supply, or they need hotel accommodations. They may need certain things on site like tables or chairs. You have to make sure all of those things are in place because they are a part of that contract. So we deal with that, we deal with set-up, we deal with the tear-down.”

    We as students are used to going to events and having fun all week, but sometimes we get so caught up in the festivities that we don’t think about what the vendor or entertainer has to be provided with to actually be at homecoming. Another aspect we usually do not think about is what actually happens after everything is done.

    Sulgit is also in charge of tear down. “Tear down is the part no one ever wants to do because after the thing is over with, people have fun and then they want to go home. So you have to stick around and break the place down and make sure it looks good for the next day whenever something else is going to happen in the same place,” Sulgit states. 

    Although Sulgit does a lot for homecoming, he says that it does not stop with him. “It takes my office, student activities committee, SGA, homecoming activities committee, homecoming election committee, it’s like an all-in process to make these kinds of things happen. We just try to help each other out and make sure the bases are covered.”

    The 2016 Homecoming bonfire had a special guest, the Ohio Burn Unit. So what determines who comes to Concord from past years to future years? “A lot of what comes to Concord for homecoming is left up to SGA. The SGA vice-president, the SGA executives and the homecoming activities committee pick out some of things that they think would be appealing to students,” Sulgit says.

    However, administration is now more involved with SGA. “We [administration] work in conjunction a lot more than we used to. Years past it used to be that SGA did homecoming. But in the last few years where budgets have been a little tighter, we’ve sort of joined forces on it to bring what we think is the same level, or maybe even better in some cases, of entertainment and such to campus despite the fact that we are working with less on both side,” Sulgit says.

     Most would think that having a smaller budget would have negative consequences, but Sulgit thinks otherwise: “I think it has been pretty effective. Case in point, this year the Ohio Burn Unit, we are working in conjunction with that. These guys are going to do that full body burn for the first time ever, to attempt a Guinness World Record here on campus. I would like to think we are stepping it up, even though we have less resources to work with.”

    With the Ohio Burn Unit coming to campus to attempt a world record, Sulgit had even more responsibilities than years past. “There are even other steps in place because I have to coordinate the Athens fire department with the public safety office, we’re going to have to rope off areas, we even have to mix the propellant they are going to use to a certain ratio,” Sulgit explained.  “It’s a lot of checked boxes to make sure that you get. These guys have done this one hundred times. They are very safe and very professional, but the reason that they have been so successful is because you really have to cross your T’s and dot your I’s.”

    Although it does involve quite a bit of planning with a lot of man-power behind it, Homecoming is special for a lot of people. “I think the things that pull people together are traditions. If you really think about it, societally we have less traditions. Homecoming is one of those annual traditions to look forward to. It’s a chance to reconnect with past friends, alumni, even just each other,” Sulgit says. “I also think it’s important to maintain these levels of activities so that it is a memorable week and it is something that people will look forward to every year. I think that is probably the main reason that homecoming is as popular as it is, we don’t do that every week,” Sulgit states. 

    Without the dedication of our administration, homecoming would not be possible, so take a moment to thank them for all their hard work.