Southlake Carroll Homecoming

The Southlake bumper sticker. Go Dragons!

'Homecoming' is an American tradition where school alumni and ex-residents are welcomed back and celebrated with parades and football matches. The City of Southlake's school district is called Carroll ISD (Independent School District), they have a dragon as a mascot and their colours are green, black and white. Everyone wears the shirts and the colours, and I mean everyone. The kids and teachers wear their shirts to school on game days, and you see people in Southlake walking around in their 'spirit wear'. The football players make an appearance at the elementary schools, helping the kids out of their cars at drop off and reading stories in the classroom, and are treated like celebrities. 'Keep the tradition' is emblazoned on everything, and they surely do. Coming from a place with a strong identity, and a dragon as a national icon, I like it.

Evan shoots some hoops

Homecoming kicked off with the Carroll Dragon Homecoming Carnival, Parade and Pep Rally on Thursday evening. Southlake Town Square was jam packed with stalls and activities for the kids to do, all organised and run by the high school students, and most of them free.

Homecoming carnival in Southlake Town Square

The kids had a go at shooting basketball hoops, soccer shootouts and even throwing custard pies in the face of a very sporting high school student. The kids managed to hook up with several of their friends and we lost Alice for an hour going around town with her girlfriends. At 6:30pm crowds lined the streets ready for the parade. Starting out with the police and fire crew, all the high school clubs and groups marched through; the band, sports teams, dance and cheerleading goups and the homecoming king and queen. Lots of them had sweets and freebies which were handed out into the crowd and there was much high-fiving with the football players.

Friday brought the Homecoming Football Game at Dragon Stadium in Southlake, which seats 11,000 people. We went along with our neighbours Victoria and Rich and their two kids Zach & Amelia. There was a fantastic atmosphere. The stadium car park was full of 'tailgaters', which is where people park up in their trucks with food, drink and BBQ's and have a cookout and party in the car park before the game.

Homecoming 2014 at Dragon Stadium

Another Texas tradition in full swing were 'Mums', which are exchanged between 'dates' at the home coming game. Mums are a bit like rosettes but traditionally centered with a chrysanthemum, hence 'Mums', but often also have hearts, teddy bears and lots of ribbons and sparkle, the bigger the better - this is Texas (this link has a picture of some Southlake Mums and a brief history of the tradition http://texashsfootball.com/texas-mums/). The stadium was full, people moving around, chatting to their friends, kids hanging around in groups with their friends, ours included. At half time, awards and honours were given to Southlake homecomers and the Carroll Band, Emerald Belles and cheerleaders provided further entertainment. It was a great game, the final score was 63-28 to the Dragons.

The kids are enjoying the game.