The creative college improvises because of a scheduling quirk after switching leagues. Instead it stages a homecoming cricket match, and Wooster cries "Jolly good!"
WOOSTER, Ohio -- The ritual bonfire blazed Friday night. The band led a parade up Beall Avenue on Saturday, when bagpipers serenaded a campus that still celebrates its Scottish roots.
About the only tradition missing from homecoming weekend at the College of Wooster was kickoff.
Lacking an opponent for its football team Saturday, the creative college improvised. It staged a homecoming cricket match, and Wooster cried, "Jolly good!"
Really.
Admissions director Scott Friedhoff primed the crowd at John P. Papp Stadium before the match. He had them practice polite clapping and British cheers.
He also drew an ovation when he announced that the assembly of 725 was, quite possibly, some kind of record for a cricket match on an American college campus.
For alumni and friends of Wooster, it was just another adventuresome homecoming at a school that prizes its peculiarities.
Homecoming this year at Wooster, a tradition-rich college of 2,000 about 50 miles southwest of Cleveland, loomed with a gaping hole in the norm. The opponent of the Fighting Scots' football team, Earlham College of Indiana, had left the conference last year and a replacement could not be found for the Big Game.
"We've had to make some adjustments," alumni director Heidi McCormick said stoically.
A pair of afternoon soccer games were on the schedule, and a Scottish celebration was planned for Saturday night. But what to do in place of three hours of football?
School President Grant Cornwell suggested the solution. A cricket fan, he was aware that Wooster's cricket team -- while only a club squad -- was better than most.
The team had been invited to the national championship tournament last year, where it was recognized as the nation's most international collegiate team.
View full sizeFighting Scots bagpipers Erika Takeo, left, and Rebecka Walrath play "Scotland The Brave" as they escort the college's club cricket team and their opponent, the Wooster Community Cricket team, during pregame of their homecoming game.Cornwell pitched the idea of a homecoming cricket match to team captain Maaz Khan, a senior from Pakistan, and earned the first "Bravo!"
Prasanna Gurumurthy, a Wooster business executive from India, put together the opponent, an eager team from the city's international community.
By the 4:30 p.m. game time, the crowd was in a curious and festive mood. They had already witnessed a performance by the College of Wooster Pipe Band and Highland Dancers on the field hockey green, where tartan and plaid kilts glowed in the autumn sun.
Now, filing into the modern football stadium, spectators were handed a Cricket 101 flier that included sections like, "Occasions When Applause Is Suggested."
"Oh, I think it's awesome," said Skye Gillispie, class of 2009, a Wooster native who flew up from South Carolina to join her family at homecoming. "I mean, I don't know anything about cricket, but it's good to learn new things."
"Totally cool," said Chester Andrews, class of 1985, who sat with a poodle in his lap. He had dragged his wife, Debbie, to yet another homecoming, and this was one homecoming game she was excited to see.
"What a great idea," she said. "I mean, it's different."
She said she was charmed to learn that it's cricket to cheer for whoever makes a splendid play, no matter whom they play for.
But what, in cricket, is splendid?
"It's a game that seems to require patience from the crowd," observed Don Stavnezer, a Wooster therapist and an adjunct professor, as the row of young people behind him got up to leave.
Fifteen minutes after Friedhoff announced a record attendance, just as many people were filing out of the stadium as filing in.
But then, the sun was still shining, somewhere bagpipes were wailing, and other homecoming traditions beckoned -- perhaps as a new one was taking root.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: rsmith@plaind.com, 216-999-4024