This year’s homecoming festivities are earlier than normal, which made advertising more difficult and put homecoming court candidates under pressure, homecoming chairs said.

Homecoming events will occur Sept. 18-21, almost a month earlier than the previous year.

Planning for Syracuse University Homecoming started in the spring semester when the football season schedule was announced, the chairs said. There are no home games in the month of October, when homecoming usually takes place.

Katelyn Hancock, the homecoming court chair, said a few court applications came in late.

‘One candidate e-mailed me and was like, ‘Oh my gosh! I went into cardiac arrest when I realized the application deadline had passed,” said Hancock, a senior public relations major.

Homecoming court applications were due the second Friday of the semester, Sept. 5, but the committee accepted three applications that came in late over the weekend, Hancock said. The committee did not accept one student’s application that came in three days after the deadline.

There were no late applications last year, she said.

The homecoming committee chairs said they are confident the week will still be successful, despite the early timing.

‘It stinks that we can’t have the freshmen involved as much as we usually would, but other than that the rest of us have met earlier and last year to help start planning for it,’ said co-chair Cortney Maslyn, a senior psychology major.

One of the advantages of having homecoming in September is the better weather, the chairs said. This Friday’s ‘Cuse Commotion events, which includes a parade, pep rally, bonfire, barbeque and concert, all take place outside.

Alycia Hawkins, another co-chair and a communication and rhetorical studies senior, said marketing was the biggest problem.

‘Our club flyers didn’t come in and we didn’t have time to correct that and get them out like we usually would,’ she said.

Marissa Broe, the third co-chair, said earlier timing wasn’t a problem.

‘We always do a lot of stuff in the spring anyway, so the committee worked really well doing a lot of planning last spring,’ said Broe, a senior magazine journalism major.

Both Broe and Hawkins said the Office of Student Life staff did a lot of work over the summer.

‘Except for the marketing, I think we are set,’ Maslyn said. ‘I think we still have the same caliber of events that we usually have.’

rsbalton@syr.edu

Published on September 14, 2008 at 12:00 pm