Tomorrow is Arizona's 100th homecoming game. The
Star has a great pictorial review of the last 100 years of Arizona football homecomings. Here are some of my favorites:
1922: Florine Pinson, a junior English major from Miami, Ariz, was selected as "Queen of the 1923 Desert" yearbook. It's not Homecoming royalty (though possibly a predecessor), since the first official Homecoming queen was crowned until 1947. Besides, traditional Homecoming royalty typically don't opt for risque poses.
1943: Football was suspended in 1943 and 1944 due to World War II. The Desert yearbook published pages of snapshots of former Wildcats now serving in the military. The campus became home to U.S. Navy cadet pilots, who lived in Yavapai Hall, had classroom instruction campus and flight instruction Gilpin Airfield at Kino and I-10, which is now home to Costco and Walmart.
1958: Kappa Sigma fraternity members won first place in the "Proposition 200" category with a funeral procession in protest to the controversial ballot initiative to change the name of Arizona State College in Tempe to "Arizona State University." Tucsonans took issue, since UA was the defacto state university for 73 years.
1970: Rufus the Wildcat died in October, 1970, before the Homecoming game against Air Force. The Desert Yearbook said the autopsy indicated stress brought on by an ulcerous condition or a virus. The veterinarian was quoted as saying the games "were a terrible stress on the animal." The ASUA Senate passed a resolution abolishing the use of a live animal as mascot. The yearbook went on: "So there will no longer be a Rufus. The only University mascot will have to be Wilbur...."
