Homecoming Brings ‘Something Old, Something New’ to FAMU

TALLAHASSEE — Florida A&M University’s (FAMU) 2013 Homecoming, "United We Strike: Something Old, Something New, Something FAMU," has been scheduled for Sunday, October 13 through Sunday, October 20.

During the week of Homecoming, some of the highlights include the President’s Gala: “Honoring Academic Excellence: Celebrating Our Schools and Colleges,” the Rattler football team taking on Howard University for the competitive matchup at Bragg Memorial Stadium, a free “Open Air” concert following the game, and the community-oriented parade, which will feature creative floats and marching bands from around the community.

“Each year, alumni return to ‘The Hill’ to unite with new and old Rattlers from across the nation for our annual Homecoming celebration,” said Marvin Green, FAMU Homecoming chair. “This year, we have a new energy and excitement on our campus that we look forward to sharing with the FAMU community.”

During the President’s Gala, to be held on Friday, Oct. 18 in the Alfred Lawson Jr. Multipurpose Center, the university will focus the spotlight on the achievements and programs of each of its 14 academic units. Following the program, the Temptations featuring Dennis Edwards will perform in concert. Tickets for the gala are $125 per person. Those interested in attending the concert only can gain entry to the Lawson Center beginning at 8:30 p.m. by purchasing a concert ticket for $30.

For this year’s Homecoming parade, scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 19, participants will travel south on Macomb Street and turn east onto West Tennessee Street. The parade will then turn south onto Duval Street and continue south to Pensacola Street. At Pensacola Street, the parade will travel west to the parking lot of the Tallahassee-Leon County Civic Center where it will disembark.

Other annual events include the highly anticipated fashion show, comedy show, convocation and coronation. The schedule of events for Homecoming 2013 is as follows:

Sunday, October 13
7 p.m. – 11 p.m.
Coronation and Ball “Mr. & Miss FAMU”
Lee Hall Auditorium and Grand Ballroom

Monday, October 14
7 p.m. – 10 p.m.
FAMU’s Best Dance Crew (Competition)
Alfred Lawson Jr. Multipurpose Center & Teaching Gymnasium

Tuesday, October 15
8 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Health Fair
Hansel Tookes Rec. Center

9 a.m. – 11 a.m.
Spirit Run/Walk Breast Cancer Awareness
“The Set” (Campus)

Noon – 2 p.m.
Royal Luncheon “Mr. & Miss FAMU/Court” (by Invitation only)
Grand Ballroom

2 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Spirit Day “King & Queen of Orange & Green”,
“The Set”

7 p.m. – 10 p.m.
Homecoming “Comedy Show”
Lawson Center

Wednesday, October 16 Orange Day
Noon – 4 p.m.
SGA Annual Homecoming Bar-B-Que
FAMU Park


12 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Student Business Expo
FAMU Park

7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Fashion & Hair Show
Lawson Center

Thursday, October 17 Green Day
3 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Judging of the Buildings Decorations
Campus

4 p.m. – 6 p.m.
National Panel on Race Relations
Lee Hall

8:30 p.m. – 11:30 p.m.
National Pan-Hellenic Council Greek Step Show
Lawson Center

Friday, October 18 Orange and Green Day
8:30 a.m. – 10 a.m.
Homecoming Breakfast
Lawson Center

10:10 a.m. – 12:10 p.m.
Convocation
Gaither Gymnasium

1 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Block Party
Wahnish Way

7 p.m. – 10 p.m.
President’s Gala
Lawson Center

Saturday, October 19
8 a.m. – 11 a.m.
Parade/Judging of Floats
(Frenchtown/Downtown Route)

11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
President’s Pre-Game Pep Rally
Employee Clubhouse


11 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Tailgate/Trailgate
Howard Hall Lawn

2 p.m. – 7 p.m.
FAMU v. Howard University Football Game
Bragg Stadium

5 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Arthur Thompson Post-Game BBQ
Employee Clubhouse

7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Open Air Concert
Howard Hall Lawn

8 p.m. – 11 p.m.
Gospel Concert
Lee Hall Auditorium

Sunday, October 20
1 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Rattler Fever Campus Clean Up
Bragg Stadium/”The Set”

Sadly, Thursday's inaccurate reports of the death of former state representative John Patrick Julien are now true. He transitioned Friday, September 27 according to his obituary in The Miami Herald. May he rest in peace.

JET magazine, in partnership with the NBCUniversal film, The Best Man Holiday, is proud to announce The Best Man Holiday Spring 2014 Scholarship in conjunction with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.

This scholarship opportunity will provide five outstanding college students with a scholarship of $1,760 for the spring 2014 school semester.

“JET is committed to the advancement of education for all individuals, especially those in the Black community, and I’m very excited that we have the opportunity to partner with NBCUniversal to offer five students scholarship funds that may help further them toward earning a college degree,” said JET magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, Mitzi Miller. “I love the first installment of The Best Man because it told a dynamic story of a group of diverse, adult friends who maintained a strong friendship since their years at college,” she continued. “What better way to celebrate such an inspiring narrative than to help a student finish college so they might one day enjoy that same experience.”

To apply for the scholarship, students can visit JETMag.com. The submission deadline is Tuesday, October 15 and winners will be notified by November 1 and officially announced in the November 25 issue of JET, which will be on the stands November 4, 2013.

 

Yesterday’s print edition of The Miami Herald includes an article and photos on black college football and its impact on civil rights. Please check out Section L, Issues and Ideas, for the article by Samuel G. Freedman, author of Breaking the Line: The Season in Black College Football That Transformed the Sport and Changed the Course of Civil Rights. The article is online at: Black Gridiron: Orange Blossom Classic -The first black Rose Bowl.

Before the Miami Dolphins and University of Miami fielded winning football teams, before FIU existed and before there were so many distractions for folks' time and money in South Florida, there was the Orange Blossom Classic in Miami’s Orange Bowl Stadium Blacks and whites came to see the game, in segregated sections, and enjoy FAMU’s marching band. The destruction of the Orange Bowl Stadium to make way for the Marlins Stadium razed a lot more than a stadium, it was a significant part of black culture not just in Miami, but throughout the nation.

Freedman will be speaking on Wednesday, September 18, 7:30 p.m., at the Wolfe Center at FIU’s north campus and at Books & Books in Coral Gables, on Thursday, September 19, 8 p.m. I'm taking my Dad since he actually played football at FAMU back in the day. No matter how warm it is on Wednesday evening, he will probably wear his FAMU football jacket.

The unfortunate by-product of breaking the color line in football led to black college football being relegated to second-class status in the minds of many. Books such as Breaking the Line provide an opportunity to expand family discussions of athletics from more than just a "means of getting out of the ghetto and making money" to an appreciation and respect for those who paved the way for athletes today.

 

Here’s an excerpt from the prologue of Breaking the Line:

In the tumultuous moments after the 2007 Super Bowl ended, the two contending coaches met at midfield. Standing only inches apart, the bills of then they embraced. Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts and Lovie Smith of the Chicago Bears had been colleagues for five earlier years on the staff of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They were friends who spoke by phone almost weekly. They shared a fervent Christian faith. And what ultimately bound them together on this rainy February night was the force of history itself.

Dungy and Smith were the first African-American coaches ever to lead a team into the Super Bowl, the most-watched game in the nation’s most popular sport, virtually a civic holiday for tens of millions of americans. While there were necessarily a winer and a loser in the game --- Dungy’s Colts had beaten Smith’s Bears 29-17 ---the adversaries were allies in the urgent and ongoing endeavor of bringing racial equality to sports and through sports to American society.

The road to their landmark achievement, however, was one little known in white America and shrouded by the passage of time even to many blacks. It started in 1837, when a group of Quakers founded a school in Philadelphia called the Institute of Colored Youth, which was subsequently expanded into a college and renamed Cheyney University. Over the succeeding decades, more than one hundred other colleges and universities for black students arose in the United States, with the vast majority of those institutions springing up in the South after the Civil War. Some of them were founded by white philanthropists or liberal religious denominations with an idealistic commitment to educating and elevating a formerly enslaved people. Many others, however, were created by governors and legislatures in the South as a means of preserving the iron rule of segregation and inequality in public schools.

 

 

If You Go:

 

'Breaking The Line' Events

Wednesday September 18

7:30 p.m.

Florida International University
Wolfe University Center Ballroom
3000 NE 151 Street
Miami, FL, 33181
(305) 919-5800

 

Thursday, September 19

8 p.m.

Books & Books
265 Aragon Avenue
Coral Gables, FL 33134
(305) 442-4408

 

-vb

 

 

Florida A&M University has just launched the inaugural cohort of the Medical Scholars Program for Fall 2013. With the start of this cohort, so follows the preparation and recruitment of the next cohort for fall 2014.

If you know of a particularly talented/intellectually-gifted high school senior intent on attending Florida A&M University and subsequent medical school, please contact Florida A&M University Division of Academic Affairs. The Medical Scholars Program at Florida A&M University provides a specialized four-year curriculum in pre-medical biology or pre-medical chemistry. Some applicants will also receive a provisional acceptance into the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University. This program is for incoming fall 2014 freshmen only.

The students for this program has earned a minimum 3.50 un-weighted high school GPA, 1800 or better SAT score or 27 or better ACT score. Application packets are updated annually and only available from Florida A&M University Division of Academic Affairs. 

Questions should be directed to (850) 599-8503 or Dr. Michael Smith at [email protected].

Senator Dwight Bullard is holding a forum on the State of Education in Florida, 6:30pm, tomorrow, at Miami Northwestern High School, 1100 NW 71 Street, Miami, FL 33150.

If you are concerned about education, be there.

- vb

Good morning, family! We've been blessed to see the beginning of another week. Let's use this gift to the best of our ability. Let's commit to helping each other and our community as a whole. There is much power in each of us as individuals and when we join together in faith and good works, well, there's nothing we can't overcome.

Faith makes things possible, not easy. Power to the People! Peace and Blessings, family!

- vb