Homecoming A Lasting Tradition
While University of Delaware football traditions have been alive and well for more than a century, it wasn’t until the early 1950s that Homecoming earned an important spot on the campus calendar.
With all-important football games as the focal point, Homecoming celebrations were enthusiastically embraced by students, alumni and members of the community.
As reported in The Review, Homecoming festivities back then began at 1 p.m. with a parade from Old College to the stadium. The UD Marching Band, then about 60 members strong, led the way with Greek organizations, dormitory groups and clubs pulling their elaborately decorated floats honoring the UD football team. Candidates for Homecoming Football Queen, as she was then called, followed in convertibles.
Cheering on the team
In the 1925–26 Blue Hen yearbook, the all-male cheerleading squad was credited with accomplishing a difficult task. “Because of the small student body, it is extremely hard for a cheerleader to get any gratifying amount of noise from the stands during games, but in so far as it is humanly possible, Charlie Green and his cheerleaders have succeeded nobly,” it stated.
After the men’s and women’s colleges merged in the mid-1940s, a coed cheerleading team became a central part of football games, basketball games and pep fests. Held prior to the big games, the pep fest of the time usually began with a torch-led parade across campus and climaxed with a bonfire on Frazer Field.
Evolution of a mascot
Another “cheerleader” has been the Blue Hen mascot, which was adopted in 1911. Delawareans became known as Blue Hens during Revolutionary War times, when members of the Delaware regiment entertained themselves by cock-fighting the ferocious birds. During the 1940s, the UD mascot was a real, live bird, named “Dela.” She was replaced in 1950 by a papier-mache Blue Hen costume. The mascot evolved over the years and is today a formidable fowl named YoUDee. Standing 6 feet, 8 inches tall from the top of its comb to the soles of its 28FF sneakers, YoUDee has a wingspan measuring 6 feet, 1 inch. In addition to delighting children and other fans, YoUDee also helps generate much more than a “gratifying amount of noise” from the stands during football games.
Victory Bell
An extra measure of noise is contributed by the Victory Bell, which has been rung for the past 53 years whenever a touchdown is scored. The bell, which was originally used to wake students and summon them to class, was put out of business by the introduction of electric bells at the turn of the century. Forgotten and silent for decades, the bell was put back into service in 1952.
Marching musicians
The UD Marching Band, formed in 1946 with just 15 musicians, is now a 351-member organization that performs at football games and numerous other events. Since its creation, the band has known only one alma mater—the one composed by Anthony J. Loudis when the University became a coeducational institution in 1944. Attempts to combine the men’s alma mater, which cheered for the sons of Delaware College, with the more sedate Women’s College version proved impossible. And so, Loudis enlisted Robert C. Currie Jr., an instructor in the English department, to write new lyrics.
The words he wrote to Loudis’ composition are still sung proudly today:
Hail to thee proud Delaware,
In loyalty we stand.
We give thee thanks for glorious days
Beneath thy guiding hand.
Full often will we praise thy name,
Thy colors proudly bear;
We lift our voices now to sing
All hail to Delaware.