Elizabeth Miller, the dean of student services, said that the homecoming tradition will come back during the winter semester and that they won’t be holding a homecoming game this semester.
Coach Dean Grosfeld, head coach for football at Cerritos College, explained how sad it is to not have a homecoming game this semester.
“Homecoming has always been a traditional football event so having it during basketball season shows that they have no idea what homecoming is about,” Grosfeld said.
Grosfeld added, “I am going to have an alumni game in November when we play Mt. Sac to welcome all of our alumni back so they can see what Cerritos is back up and playing.”
“I refuse to discourage our alumni by canceling [a] very important event like homecoming again,” the men’s football coach added.
“It’s sad that we don’t get the support from the school that we should,” Grosfeld said.
“The problem is that our school doesn’t know the history of Cerritos and they don’t even spend time wanting to know the history of Cerritos College and that bothers me.”
Miller gives a reason why the college won’t be having a homecoming game during the fall semester.
“We were really short staffed and didn’t have the capacity to pull together,” Miller said, “We lost our beloved Communities Coordinator, Amna Jara and covering all the roles, it wasn’t doable this semester.”
The dean of student services said that she’s talking to the athletics department to see if they can hold a homecoming game in the winter, once their new staff member is hired.
“It won’t be football because it’s a fall sport,” Miller said, “it would have to be a sport that would be occurring that time … and I also had the idea if it ties into a women’s sport because it’s the 50th anniversary of Title IX.”
Miller said that COVID-19 didn’t play a significant role in homecoming not being in the fall semester.
“We’re back and we’re doing events on campus … now it’s just getting back in our regular swing of things.”
“We want to have an event to build school spirit and welcome alumni back,” she said.
“So we know we weren’t able to do it in the fall [because of our office limitations], it doesn’t mean we don’t want to have an event recognizing athletics, athletes and alumni,” Miller added,
As for future plans, Miller said that the plans will be based on what the students want in a homecoming game.
She said that the decision to stop running the homecoming court and having floats in 2019 was based on ASCC, while there wasn’t a desire to do the traditional floats and homecoming queen.
However, they added a tailgate party to replace the homecoming court where clubs hosted tables outside of the game and each club would participate, just like in the past.
“If students have feedback, send an email to ascc@cerritos.edu or stop by the student activities office in the Auto Partner’s building because we do want to hear what students want or any ideas they have,” Miller said.
