Did Baylor host the first collegiate homecoming? ‘Signs point to yes.’

“What school hosted the first collegiate homecoming?”

It’s a question that’s been long debated. But if you picture an alumni event centered around a varsity football game when you think of homecoming, then there’s no question that Baylor University hosted the first collegiate homecoming, all the way back in 1909.

That’s the conclusion that the University of Illinois reached in 2005, when they began researching the question. Illinois archivist Ellen Swain put it plainly: “Baylor probably had the first homecoming.”

ESPN reached a similar conclusion in 2024 when they dug into the matter: “If history wants to remember the first, official homecoming game in college football, all the evidence suggests this [Baylor] was it.”

In the fall of 1909, Baylor alumni received a postcard signed by three professors, asking graduates to return to campus to “renew former associations and friendships, and catch the Baylor spirit again.” On Nov. 24, the first-ever Homecoming began. The next day featured class reunions, a parade with 130+ entries led by the Baylor band, and a football game at Carroll Field in which BU defeated TCU, 6-3.

Other schools sometimes stake a claim to having hosted the first collegiate homecoming — but each claim has its issues:

• Southwestern University invited alumni back in April 1909, but the event lacked the central elements most people picture when they think “homecoming” (bonfire, parade, football game, etc.).
• Illinois and Indiana hosted early homecoming events centered around football — but theirs were in 1910, a year after Baylor’s.
• Missouri is often credited with inventing the celebration — but its first homecoming followed all of those above, and was two years after Baylor’s.
• Northern Illinois began holding an alumni banquet in 1906, but didn’t refer to its event as a homecoming until 1911 and didn’t include a varsity football game until 1914.
• Michigan began playing alumni football games in 1897, but didn’t even use the term “homecoming” until 1947.

Baylor’s first homecoming didn’t become an annual occasion until 1915. But if we’re simply looking for who held the first Homecoming event — a time where alumni are invited back to campus, centered around an intercollegiate football game — it seems pretty clear Baylor led the way.

Sic ’em, Baylor homecomers!