As the Saturday autumn sun rose on College Hill, members of the Class of 2026 prepared for celebration, a day of touchdowns and royal sashes, a restlessness born of reunions with recent grads who share stories of success in the world beyond the Maryville College gates and the bittersweetness of experiencing a final Homecoming as students.
A final undergrad Hoco for seniors
Many Scots come to the realization that MC is home shortly after they set foot on campus. Waiting on the 1 p.m. kickoff between the Fighting Scots of Coach Ben Fox and the Centre College Colonels, Montina Jones ’26 was determined to make every moment of her final Homecoming as an undergraduate count.
“I’m just spending time with my friends, especially the ones that I’ve made since my freshman year — those really good friendships where we’re still going to be in contact with each other afterwards, and it just makes me really grateful for everything,” Jones said. “Maryville College is quite literally my second home, and (after graduation) I want to come back to Maryville. This College has just given me so many opportunities that I never would have imagined, and every time I’m here, it just feels like a warm hug.”
A Homecoming tradition is resurrected
Official MC Athletics estimates of the crowd size — 9,258 people turned out to watch Maryville College defeat Centre 33-13, and for quarterback Bryson Rollins ’26, it made all the difference. The game was tied 13-13 at halftime, but MC returned in the third quarter on a mission, and the full stands helped them complete it, Rollins said.
“It just feels good to get a huge crowd out here today,” he said. “It just feels great to have a lot of support, and I know for me, I wanted to go off with a bang.”
Doniqua Flack Chen ’15 — director of student involvement and leadership development — was looking to reclaim another tradition: The pageantry and production of an official Maryville College Homecoming Court for 2025, reintroduced for the first time since 2019.
“I always enjoy seeing students creating the campus life they want to see,” Chen said. “I was here in 2019 in a similar role when the Student Programming Board last did it. Students lost interest, and then COVID made it fizzle out of campus life, so as a 2015 Homecoming queen, it’s fun to see it return.”
Scots nominated their peers for Homecoming Court online, and this year’s court included first-year class representatives Nick Torres ’29 of Winchester, Tennessee, and Sonjia Hernandez ’29 of Springfield, Tennessee; sophomore representatives Charla Young ’28 of Douglasville, Georgia, and John Lee ’28 of Jacksonville, Florida; junior class representatives Michel Gonzalez ’27 of Lenoir City, Tennessee, and Emma Lowery ’27 of Maryville; and senior class representatives Liz Harvey-Ayers ’26 of Zebulon, Georgia, Lauren Myers ’26 of Maryville, Austin McKee ’26 Vonore, Tennessee, Clara Webster ’26 of Alcoa, Vanessa Laguerre ’26 of Knoxville, and Tyrika Small ’26 of Carthage, Tennessee.
Seniors Megan Cooper ’26 of Knoxville and Madison Smith ’26 of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, were selected as Homecoming Royalty, an honor Cooper attributed to her involvement in campus life more so than her popularity.
“It was about how much you give back to the community, and I felt like that was just such a great culture moment,” she said. “All of us were really rooting for each other, too, and I thought there was something very special about that.”
A home revisited
Cooper and Smith were selected as Maryville College Homecoming 2025 royalty and were presented with sashes during a halftime ceremony, which also included recognition of the latest inductees to the Maryville College Wall of Fame. Eryk Watson ’11, inducted for basketball, couldn’t stop grinning as he checked out the murals, oversized photos and new paint patterns on the first floor of Fayerweather Hall.
Smith Jean-Philippe ’00 never left — after graduating with a degree in Organizational Management, he has taught at Maryville High School for 23 years now. As he manned a charcoal grill two hours before gametime on Saturday, the scene around him felt less like a college tailgate and more like a family gathering.
“It’s those bonds,” he said, turning hot dogs with tongs. “I don’t know how many weddings I’ve been to of people I was in school with, or how many of my classmates I’m still in contact with, or how many of the players I helped coach (Jean-Philippe was a part-time assistant football coach in 2009 and 2010) that I still know. You develop a brotherhood wherever you go, from golf courses to games where your kids are playing the kids of guys you went to school with. It’s just so awesome, man.”
And outsiders recognize it as well. Dr. Bryan Coker, Maryville College’s 12th president, made reference to the unique nature of Homecoming at MC during Friday night’s Founder’s Day Showcase, and as he rode in the Homecoming parade with his wife, Sara, and Dolly — the couple’s beloved Basset hound and a welcomed guest at numerous College functions — he couldn’t help but consider how such devotion serves as both inspiration and caution.
“I always describe our Homecoming as pleasantly or delightfully overwhelming,” Coker said after MC emerged victorious in Saturday’s game.
For Tameika Hampton of Lawrenceville, Georgia, Maryville College Homecoming 2025 was her third. The mother of Scots tight end Jaden Marlin ’27, she and her family wore shirts extolling Marlin’s greatness, and while her boy still has another season and another year of school in him after this one, that doesn’t mean she won’t keep coming back for Homecoming even after he’s transitioned to an alumnus.
“It’s not just a homecoming (for alumni), it’s a homecoming for all,” she said. “All of the great things this school has done … all of the accomplishments its students have made … this is just bringing it back home to where it all started. It’s literally inviting you to come home, and let’s all feast together.”
“I always tell people this is about one of my top two or three favorite days of the year,” said Brian Gossett ’00, who hasn’t missed a single Homecoming since graduation. “I look forward to it like you do major holidays, because you get the chance to be together with people that you went to school with and who were here before you.”
“I’ve been incredibly impressed with the engagement of a wide range of alumni from recent years to more than 50 years back,” said Dr. Ben Stubbs, vice president and dean of students. “They show up in their Maryville College colors, they attend the events, they want to speak with the staff and the students, and you can just tell how much this place means to them.”
After Sunday morning’s Service of Remembrance, the pilgrims will scatter again — to Georgia and California, to all the far-off corners of the map — but for one shining day, they were home.
“When you come back,” said Rob Kennedy ’71, who drove the Cokers in the Homecoming parade, “you begin to know people who might have been in your class, but you didn’t really know them. But as alumni, you’ve got something in common — you’ve got this place. And they become dear friends that you’ll stay connected to for the rest of your life. That’s why Homecoming, to me, is the best day of each and every year.”
Maryville College never really lets you go. It simply waits, patiently, for you to find your way home again. And as the last tail lights disappear down Lamar Alexander Parkway, College Hill will stand quiet beneath the stars — a chapel without walls, keeping the light on for those who will always find their way back home.
Maryville College is a nationally-ranked institution of higher learning and one of America’s oldest colleges located in Maryville, Tennessee, between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the city of Knoxville. Maryville College offers more than 60 majors, seven pre-professional programs and career preparation from their first day on campus to their last, in the words of our Presbyterian founder, to “do good on the largest possible scale.”
Karen Eldridge, Executive Director of Communications: karen.eldridge@maryvillecollege.edu.
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