The room was packed with UH students bursting with Cougar pride Wednesday night in the Houston Room at the University Center. The students were gathered to celebrate homecoming week at the Strut Your Stuff event featuring performances from various organizations and groups across campus.
After the opening ceremonies and pledge of allegiance, Director of Athletics Mark Rhoades, delivered a spirited speech to rile up the crowd, introduced the show’s judges and brought the event’s first act on stage — a performance by local band, the Costigans.
Each group that competed in the event was tasked with performing a musical number, skit, dance or video presentation in the spirit of this year’s homecoming theme, “A Great American Classic,” which was chosen by Homecoming Board member Nina Flores. Performances following the theme used classic movies such as “Top Gun,” “Star Wars” and “the Wizard of Oz.”
During the opening acts, officials passed out free raffle tickets to the audience and there were multiple raffle drawings throughout the night.
One popular video featured flashbacks to pivotal moments in past football games, captivating the audience and building anticipation for the upcoming Homecoming game against Marshall this Saturday. Many students said they were surprised with the enthusiasm and energy of their peers.
“I feel like this is really refreshing,” said Channing Tang, senior supply chain management major and Alpha Chi Omega member. “Its nice to know that our student body has such a huge amount of school pride.”
Another video had the crowd laughing, as several UH football players, including senior receiver Justin Johnson, gave cameras a tour of their home, in a parody of the MTV show “Cribs.”
In another video, audience was treated to clips of another Homecoming week activity, Paint the UC, where the organizations painted the glass surrounding the UC according to theme with visions of the Cougars winning their upcoming game against Marshall.
The show also made way for the introduction of the Homecoming court, which will also be announced at the game on Saturday on the football field.
Awards were announced at the end for categories such as musical performance, small dance, best video, and large variety show. Best video went to American Advertising Federation UH for their Grease reenactment with a UH twist. The large variety show award went to Sigma Phi Epsilon and Delta Zeta for their Sandlot themed act.
The event closed with the Frontiersmen leading the crowd in the UH fight song.
