Homecoming may not be a big deal to many college students now, but wait until you get old.

That’s how I felt last weekend.

I visited my high school’s Homecoming football game. The result was the same as always – us, not many points – them, a whole lot more points. But Homecoming is never about the football game regardless of what anyone in the athletic department will tell you.

It’s about feeling old.

The players on the field seem so much younger, the guys in the band looked like junior high school kids and the Homecoming court looked like preteen wannabe beauty queens. But it all had a lure to it that is hard to explain. It didn’t seem like that long ago, I was there on the inside looking out.

Homecoming is all about nostalgia and humans are genetically engineered to be nostalgic. For as many times as people say “Stop living in the past,” adults look back and wish they were there.

It’s been done in popular movies and television shows for a reason – we all wish we could go back.

With the sense of feeling old comes a sense of agelessness. Looking at the field I remember being there as part of the band, others remember playing in the big game and others may remember simply being a part of the crowd. While the faces had all changed and I knew none of them, they were all having the same experiences I had when I was in their shoes. I’d jump back in those shoes in a heartbeat.

We’ve all been there, done that and we want to do it again.

But there are few that don’t wish they could go back and live it over again.

So when we look around this weekend and see wrinkled faces and gray hairs, you’ll see smiles too. There are plenty of crazy college kids begging to get out buried behind a middle-aged exterior.

With a few exceptions, we can’t go back. We celebrate the few 50-something moms and dads that do have the courage to come back and try again, but for the most part, few ever get the chance.

Some college students only get a few cracks at Homecoming as it is. Transfer students have only two or three Homecomings at Eastern – some students have fewer.

So take some time to cherish this week. There will be few in our lifetime like it. Don’t worry about what it all means. That will sort out when you get old.

Take a pause from a drunken beer breakfast before the parade to remember what you are experiencing. It’s not something to be forgotten, because likely, it’s something you’ll never forget.

Help alumni remember what it was like. Pass a beer or two with the brats and dogs during tailgating – don’t give that older fraternity brother a snide look when he talks about the way things were when he was here, because chances are, that’ll be you a few years down the road.

Homecoming proves that you can go home again, but it’ll never quite be the same.

*Nate Bloomquist is the Sports editor and semi-monthly columnist for The Daily Eastern News. Bloomquist also is a senior journalism major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].