Florida Homecoming: Inside Nation’s Largest Student-Run Parade
By the time floats begin to roll in at 6:30 a.m., the students behind the University of Florida’s Homecoming Parade have already spent eight months preparing for the annual event.
UF’s Homecoming parade on Friday leading up to Saturday’s kickoff is the nation’s largest student-run parade that originated in 1916. It brings together students, alumni and Gainesville residents together to embrace the school spirit.
Preparation for the parade starts in February with outreach for potential participants and applications open in March. This year the parade team reviewed more than 150 applications and approved 130 entries for the event that travels down University Avenue.
Putting on a parade of this caliber requires communication with stakeholders from inside and outside of the university, including working with the city to ensure road closures and security. Although the logistical work is intense, maintaining student leadership for the parade is important.
“It’s about the Gainesville community, but in my mind it’s all about sharing love for the University of Florida and you can’t do that if you have faculty or anyone else running a homecoming,” Noah Kurkin, this year’s director of the parade, said.
From high school cheerleading teams to LED sign companies to engineering design teams, the Gainesville community comes together to show its Gator pride. Schools in the Gainesville area cancel classes on the Friday of the parade so that students and staff can make it out to the event.
“It gets everyone ready. It gets everyone in the spirit,” Kurkin said. “We try to just make everyone understand that UF is the greatest school in the world. We do that by having people from all walks of life, all different organizations, all communities.”
Among the participants is the UF Solar Gators team, which has been bringing cars out to the parade for years. The team of students designs and manufactures solar-powered race cars to send to a summer competition every year, and they feature one of these cars at the parade as well.
This year the car Flare completed its retirement lap at the parade, decked out in solar cells from the team’s “Name a Cell” fundraiser. Solar Gators has been offering the opportunity for people and companies to purchase a cell and make their mark on the car for the past two years in order to connect with the Gainesville community. The car features 386 cells. Companies have pasted their logos on these and families have left wholesome messages.
“We want to be able to take those people with us that are supporting us, walk them through the parade, show our appreciation, and show off anything they want to get recognition for,” president of Solar Gators Isabella Lucarelli said.
Lucarelli first attended the parade with Solar Gators as a freshman and said it was her first time being around the team outside of work meetings. That year there were complications with the car and they were working diligently to get it up and running.
“Everyone was fully committed to making sure we could participate in this parade and connect with our community,” Lucarelli said. “That has been one of the things I admire most about the people on this team.”
The homecoming parade brings together the community within the walls of UF, but it also creates new memories in a place nostalgic for some people.
Laura Spelman and Janeen Denhaese became friends when they attended UF together. Denhaese, who now resides in Georgia, hasn’t been back to campus for more than 20 years. The duo worked together on Gator Growl as students and the memories surrounding homecoming are what brought them back for the weekend.
“Homecoming means the time to celebrate the Gators and celebrate the university,” Spelman said.
For Denhaese, returning to Gainesville is more than simply revisiting her alma mater. Walking alongside Spelman, she found herself remembering the traditions that shaped their college years and preparing to make new memories at Saturday’s game.
“We’re reminiscing when we’re walking,” Denhaese said. “We did the Gator Gallop and we’re going to the game tomorrow.”
For Kurkin, bringing people joy and embracing tradition is what the parade is all about.
“It’s been around for so long and there isn’t anything that I would honestly want to change with it,” Kurkin said.
Category: Gator Sports, Gators Football
