Mistakes in scheduling that resulted in a Homecoming Weekend without a football game were “not intentional” and should not affect turnout, according to Jennifer Love, the associate director of Alumni Relations.

The scheduling errors, which both Love and Head Football Coach Brad Fordyce stated were the fault of the Centennial Conference, could not be corrected.

“We contacted every one of the teams in the Centennial Conference,” Love said of the college’s efforts to reschedule the football team’s slated away game for Dickinson’s homecoming. “We contacted the conference ourselves and they were just not going to change the schedule.”

Fordyce agreed, stating that the error was in the “master schedule” put out by the Centennial Conference. According to Love, this schedule is made 18 months in advance.

“That is the only reason football will be away for homecoming,” Fordyce wrote in an email to The Dickinsonian.

There are a lot of hoops to jump through when scheduling homecoming, stated Love. Dickinson tries to avoid weekends during which there will be a large car show, to make sure there are hotels available to book and restaurant access for visiting parents and alumni. Additionally, the weekend has to be placed strategically between the start of classes and Fall Pause. Since Labor Day and the start of classes was late compared to previous years, that also impacted the date.

“Probably the toughest part of my job is selecting homecoming weekend,” she concluded. “It’s just a challenging, moving target.”

Dickinson wants as many families to be able to attend that weekend as possible, which is also something to consider when selecting a weekend. According to Love, sometimes as many as 1,200 people attend a typical homecoming weekend, approximately 300 are alumni and up to 900 are parents and families. With the football team away, many players have expressed that their families will not be attending the homecoming weekend. About 75% of the parents of the  over 80 players on the team consistently attend homecoming weekend, according to football player Trystin Golowski ’20, a significant group missing for the weekend.

“This [football parents] is a group that we be missed on campus,” stated Love. “We love having that energy in the stands and down on Biddle Field.”

To make up for it, the football team hosted a “football homecoming” game this past weekend during their competition against Gettysburg College for the “Little Brown Bucket.” They won 30-7 for a victory now three years in a row against this rival. 

“My parents came this weekend for the bucket game,” stated Golowski. “[They] will not be attending parents weekend because we have an away game and it wouldn’t make sense for them to come here from [a] financial or time perspective.”

Despite the lack of a football game, there will be many other events and games taking place. Women’s Field Hockey will be the featured game of the weekend, as well as the Volleyball team and Women’s Soccer. An alumni swim meet, men’s and women’s lacrosse games and a baseball game are also scheduled.

“It gave us the opportunity to fill more time slots with different activities,” Love said. “There’s still going to be the big tailgate down at the field and it’ll be nice for the Field Hockey Team.”

“I am super excited that field hockey is the highlighted sport for homecoming weekend!” said Heather Meeder ’20, a member of the Field Hockey team. “Muhlenberg is one of our top competitors so we are excited to have a lot of positive energy for the game on Saturday!… Our games are scheduled out years in advance for the Centennial Conference so on an administrative level this weekend must have been the best time logistically and it just so happened that we had a home game! We are super excited for the support!” 

President of Dickinson College Margee Ensign added that this homecoming weekend is an opportunity to honor other sports. “It’s going to be a great homecoming.”

Head Field Hockey Coach and Assistant Athletic Director Carly Zinn commented in an email, “We are very excited to be honoring the new Hall of Fame inductees at halftime of our game,” referring to the ceremony taking place at the halftime of the homecoming game. “It is going to be a great weekend with both our soccer and volleyball team hosting homecoming games as well. We wish everyone the best in their contests and a safe and fun weekend. We are also really looking forward to helping at the Run For Steph 5k on Sunday morning.”

Several football players, however, are still disappointed in the situation.

“I think it’s unusual,” stated Brian Snow ’19 of the development. 

Malcolm Davis ’19 echoed those sentiments:

“It is sad to see. Football and homecoming go together like peanut butter and jelly. When I first realized we were not playing on homecoming, I thought it was a website error but I quickly came to realize that it was a fact.”

Ryan McMahon ’19 shared that alumni had reached out to him with their disappointment as well. “I had alumni text me saying that they were upset we’re playing an away game during homecoming.”

Love expressed that she had also received feedback form alums in light of the schedule. “There are actually alumni that are not happy [football is not playing at] homecoming.”

In an email to The Dickinsonian, Assistant Football Coach Bob Jazwinski had no comment on the situation: “Unfortunately I have no comment at this time. Not sure I could add much to the article as I do not know the events and decisions that led to the change.” 

“I hope you get to the bottom of it,” he added.

However, Love stated that “the coaching staff and the athletic directors were part of all of these conversations.”

“It is very sad to see that the administration does not support us enough to give us a homecoming game,” Davis said. “If they claim to support us then someone from the administration should [have] come to practice or sent an email on why we are not playing on homecoming.”

“We even attempted to contact other teams to switch so we could have a home game, but nobody was willing to make the switch. We truly exhausted every option to be able to do that… So, there wasn’t anything we could do. I wish that message had been relayed to the football team. The athletic staff was well aware of that.”

Love says with certainty that there will be a home football game for homecoming next year, Sept. 27 through 29, 2019. In regards to the Centennial Conference, “we have been promised that it won’t happen again.”

Multiple attempts to receive comment from a representative from the Centennial Conference were unsuccessful before print time.