UB Is True Blue: Football, Fireworks, Face-Painting Highlight Homecoming Weekend

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Next Friday will kick off the annual University at Buffalo tradition, True Blue Days -- a time for students, alumni, faculty, staff, family and friends to paint themselves blue and white, and celebrate in the glow of a giant bonfire.

To the UB faithful, it means one thing: It's time for the UB homecoming football game, which this year pits the UB Bulls against the Temple Owls. Kickoff is noon, Saturday, Oct. 23, in UB Stadium.

True Blue festivities will begin at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 22, with a reception in the UB North Campus' Center for the Arts (CFA) featuring welcoming remarks by UB President John B. Simpson. Light hors d'oeuvres will be served. Visitors can take backstage tours of the CFA, which will conclude with the UB Art Gallery's new exhibit "Golden Days of Artpark," a glimpse of radical art created during the park's first decade.

Friday's homecoming events will continue with "Augusten Burroughs: A One Night Stand!" a comedy presentation at 8 p.m. in the Mainstage Theatre in the CFA. The show features Burroughs, whose best-selling memoir, "Running with Scissors," was on The New York Times bestseller list for more than four years and was adapted to an Oscar-nominated film in 2006.

If art and comedy are not your thing, visitors can enjoy carnival-style rides, such as the "loop-o-plane" and the "round-up," and games of chance from 5:30-9:30 p.m. Friday on Lake LaSalle on the North Campus. A bonfire large enough to require at least 50 pallets of wood will light up a pep rally aimed at getting UB fans excited for the next day's game. Fireworks will close out the evening's festivities.

"We are ecstatic to present Homecoming Carnival and Spirit week for the UB student body as well as the community at large," says Nischal Vasant, president of the UB Student Association. "Homecoming is one of the longest-running traditions at UB, and we're excited to bring an even bigger and better week of events than last year."

Last year's True Blue festivities attracted about 4,000 people, despite bad weather.

A 9 a.m. tailgate party on Saturday in the Special Events Parking Lot on North Campus will start game day festivities. Gruvology will entertain with smooth jazz music. The first 100 students to arrive will receive a free breakfast sandwich and coffee. Other tailgating foods, such as hotdogs and pretzels, will be available for $2.

Thunder of the East and the Dazzlers, UB's marching band and dance team, will escort UB's football players into the stadium at 9:40 a.m. A bounce house, obstacle course, football and beanbag tosses, face-painting and other amusements will be available outside the stadium. Students will also have the opportunity to create a self-portrait to be used in the 2011 Faces of Buffalo mosaics.

Closing out the tailgate experience will be Boys of Summer, winners of a 2009 Buffalo Music Award for Top Group Vocals.

"We hope that everyone comes out and joins us to show the spirit for the Bulls!" says Vasant.