Homecoming is just around the corner — and for Greek life — that means it is time to pomp.
What is pomping? It may be hard to believe, but the term “pomping” first surfaced right around WWII, just a couple of years before the 1950s. Pomping is the art of taking small pieces of tissue paper, bundling them up, and gluing them to a hard, wood-like surface for a simple and colorful decoration.
Pomping began gaining attention when sorority women circa 1950 began decorating the doors of their sorority houses with the small and colorful wadded up tissue paper. It was a little while after the 1950s when pomping started to be utilized for decoration on college fraternity and sorority homecoming floats. The small pomps can make any shape or outline one desires, and it is one of the easiest and clean-looking ways to decorate without spending a lot of money or making a huge mess. However, that’s if you are not building an entire life-sized float like the present-day students here at the University of Tennessee.
Today, pomping is still one of the oldest and arguably best traditions students in Greek life continue to utilize and honor today. Essentially, the tradition of pomping begins with fraternities pairing with sororities by oh-so-romantically asking them to partner up for homecoming. When the sororities graciously accept, they are agreeing to become a team with said fraternity and compete to build the best homecoming float to win homecoming 2024.
This year, the theme of homecoming is Neyland Night Lights, and sororities and fraternities have already begun the long and tedious process of pomping for their floats. While pomping might seem simple, there is a lot more that goes into this entire process than just wadding up colorful tissue paper. These thousands of little pomps will come together to create a float in theme to Neyland’s lights.
According to the ACE committee, the longest running student organization in charge of judging homecoming events, there are incredibly specific guidelines and procedures to follow when it comes to homecoming floats.
For example, the sizing of the float, time spent, regulation of pomps and student involvement are all factors to consider. Additionally, Greek life participants are not allowed under any circumstances to begin the float prior to the week of homecoming.
Any collision with the clear set of guidelines provided by ACE can result in a major loss of points, or even worse, disqualification. And yes, this happens.
Each member of the sororities and fraternities are required to spend 10 hours per person of each organization, if not more, to contribute to the homecoming float. When putting into perspective the time spent on each float for each of the teams, this is nothing less than pure dedication. Classes — as all participants must be currently enrolled UTK students — clubs, jobs and other commitments, are all taking up students’ time to begin with. Taking 10 or more hours out of the week to complete the homecoming floats on top of that is very tedious, yet all worth it in the end.
The floats will be presented Friday, Nov. 8 on Peyton Manning Pass at 4 p.m. If you choose to go watch, make sure to cheer on the Greek organizations. Homecoming would not be the same without them and their long hours spent pomping. Go Phi Mu and Alpha Gamma Rho!
Ansley Graves is a junior at UT this year studying journalism. She can be reached at [email protected].
Columns and letters of The Daily Beacon are the views of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Beacon or the Beacon’s editorial staff.
