Each fall, Ohio University transforms. Court Street bursts with green and white as alumni pour in with nostalgia. Homecoming is not another college weekend; it’s the soul of OU. Beneath the parade floats and elaborate tailgates, there’s the reminder of why this campus feels like home in the first place.
The 2025 OU Homecoming week takes place Oct. 13-18 with a packed schedule. Alumni are welcomed back to OU with friendly competitions like Paint the Town Green and countless attractions such as photo booths and yard games.
OU is hosting traditional events such as the annual alumni awards ceremony and the Bobcat family tent. Students and alumni look forward to coming together every year on Homecoming weekend to partake in these events.
Let’s be honest, college can feel short-lived. People come and go, the semesters blur together and every week seems to introduce a new wave of faces at the dining hall. However, Homecoming breaks the rhythm.
It’s the one weekend where past and present collide in the best ways. You see alumni on Court Street reliving their glory days, while freshmen stare wide-eyed at the same bricks they will one day be missing. The line between student and graduate fades, and what’s left is pure Bobcat pride.
That’s the thing, Homecoming is less about football and more about belonging. Sure, the game gives everyone a reason to paint themselves green and go to Peden Stadium, but it’s what happens off the field that makes it magical. It’s the walk through College Green as the Marching 110 plays. It’s the parade confetti that sticks to the bottom of your sneakers. It’s running into someone you haven’t seen since orientation and realizing how far you’ve both come since the first weekend you shared at OU.
There is something powerful about a tradition that draws so many different kinds of people back year after year. Many schools have a homecoming, but OU’s version is different; it’s more intimate. Each alum who returns does so not out of obligation, but because Athens showed them something that has stuck with them. The red bricks and the music echoing down Court Street, those memories don’t fade; they become the best kind of nostalgia.
Still, Homecoming also forces us to confront the passage of time. For seniors, it’s a bittersweet preview of the goodbye that is coming too fast. For alumni, it is a mirror held up to their younger selves. For underclassmen, it’s a promise that you’re building something now you’ll want to cherish forever.
In that way, Homecoming is a lesson disguised as a party. It teaches students to believe in a community that doesn’t end when graduation comes along; it just changes form.
Yes, the Homecoming traditions can be loud and maybe even overwhelming. But Homecoming weekend is one of the few weekends out of the school year when everyone, including students, staff, alumni and even locals, seems to share the same heartbeat. For 48 hours, Athens stops feeling like just a college town and starts feeling like a living memory.
As the Marching 110 comes down Court Street, the bars fill and the bricks echo with laughter, remember that Homecoming is not only about reliving the past. It’s about realizing you're part of something that will always call you back, no matter how far you go. The phrase, “Once a Bobcat, always a Bobcat,” rings through everyone who comes back, and Homecoming is proof of that.
Heidi Bartolone is a sophomore studying communications at Ohio University. Please note the opinions expressed in this column do not represent those of The Post. Want to talk to Heidi about her column? Email her at hb963023@ohio.edu.
