By Mark F. Gray, Host The Sports Groove
NewsTalk 1450 WOL & www.wolam.com

Bowie State played their first home game of the season last Saturday at and they blasted Lincoln 28-2 in the fifth annual Prince George’s Classic.  However, the real Black College Football classic in America’s most affluent African American County is this weekend’s homecoming contest against Elizabeth City State.

The renaissance of the county’s HBCU is captured in the weekend celebration highlighted by Saturday’s football game.  Twenty years ago Bowie State was a tiny campus on a long rural stretch of Route 197 – the only landmark on a dark two lane road way. Boy have things changed these days!
 The best kept secret on the east coast now finds itself on the cusp of becoming an elite institution that can recruit students from all over the country for a variety of impressive academic programs.  Physically the campus takes a backseat to nobody especially since the state of Maryland has invested in the other “University” in the most prosperous Black county in the country to become a player in the new millennium.

Homecoming is the classic weekend for the Bulldog nation to celebrate and bask in its pride before, during, and after the game.  Unlike the two other major HBCU’s in this area (Howard and Morgan State) Bowie’s homecoming is unique because it has maintained the flavor of coming home to cherish and develop memories with “your folks”. That is the real meaning of homecoming. 

Bowie State’s location and the layout of the campus creates a southern feel to the weekend.  Homecoming in the south is mostly about the game, somewhat about the halftime show, and mainly about the tailgating.  That is a concept that Morgan is just learning to embrace and Howard can’t do because they don’t have the space.  Besides, who can really flip burgers on the grill with carefully manicured fingernails complete with French tips?  Where can you set up your grill outside your RV to jump start your day on Georgia Avenue anyway?

That the Bulldogs face Elizabeth City State in what amounts to an elimination game for them in the CIAA east division is really a sidebar to how major Saturday’s contest really is.   Their conference has its own TV package and with the national audience seeing the campus on the “Game Of The Week” platform the rest of the country will now find out what the Bulldog Nation has been professing in an understated fashion for years. “We’re proud, we’re bold, and we love our black and gold”.

What makes Bowie State’s homecoming such a special celebration is that it is about the rekindling the spirit of the student body and alumni.  The passion and energy is not augmented by celebrities, paparazzi, and other social distractions that dilute what homecoming is about.  Welcome, we’re glad you’re here, have a great time, please come back sometime soon, catch you in a few let me holla at my folks.
Bowie State’s homecoming is 14 carat gold and Prince George’s County’s “real” HBCU football classic.