MIZZOU HOMECOMING

Back in 1911, when Chester Brewer invited alumni to come home for the Missouri-Kansas football game, he couldn't have envisioned that the event would become Mizzou's biggest annual tradition. Rather, Brewer, Mizzou's football coach and athletic director, was trying to circumvent a problem. Until then, the Missouri-Kansas game had been held in Kansas City, Mo., attracting scores of alumni and generating significantincome for both schools. When the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association declared that conference games would have to be played on college campuses, Brewer was concerned about whether alumni would make the trip to Columbia. Thus, his invitation for alumni to "come home" was a call that drew a crowd of 9,000-plus.

Click to explore the historic moment of Mizzou Homecoming:

For years, third-party ammunition has fueled debates about which university can be credited with starting Homecoming. Several previously published newspaper articles report that the NCAA credits Mizzou with the first Homecoming - though NCAA librarian Ellen Summers says nothing in NCAA records definitively indicates that Mizzou's 1911 Homecoming was the first. In the past decade, several universities have also challenged Mizzou's claim as the tradition's birthplace.