string(62) "maryville-college-hosts-community-day-for-sept-9-football-game"

Maryville College hosts ‘Community Day’ this Saturday for game against Centre

Sept. 5, 2023

As part of a special “Community Day” event, Maryville College is waiving the entrance fee to the Sept. 9 Maryville College-Centre College football match-up on Honaker Field. The game is the first at home for the Scots, who opened their season on Sept. 2 with a 28-8 win against the University of the South-Sewanee on the road.

Community Day is being planned to welcome longtime fans back to Thornton Stadium and introduce the College’s athletic program to new residents of the area. Kickoff is scheduled for 2 p.m. The gates open at 12:30 p.m.

“We look forward to kicking off our home schedule right here on the historic Honaker Field,” said Sara Quatrocky, Maryville College athletic director. “We want our community to come and experience a ‘college football’ Saturday on campus as we host Centre College. From the pregame Scots Walk, to tailgating, to the pep band, to exciting action on the field — the game day experience here at Maryville College is truly special.”

The match-up with Centre College is the second in a “renew the rivalry” series that celebrates longstanding match-ups with teams that were on Maryville College’s schedule perennially until the last decade. Maryville and Centre have opposed each other in football 66 times, with the Colonels winning the last six to take a 36-29-1 series lead.

Maryville College President Bryan F. Coker said he always looks forward to seeing the community turn out to cheer on the Scots on game day Saturdays.

“We have played football at Maryville College since 1889, when Japanese student Kin Takahashi organized the first team, and since then, Blount County residents have reliably shown up to support our young student-athletes,” Coker said. “This is a community blessed with incredible Friday night football, and we always want the community to think of the Scots as a hometown team, too, on Saturday afternoons.”

Donations collected for Idalia victims

In lieu of entrance fees, College students and staff will be collecting donations for the victims of Hurricane Idalia, which devastated areas of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas and affected the home communities of several MC students and alumni. All monies collected will go to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, which is the emergency and refugee work of the PC(USA) that focuses on the long-term recovery of disaster-impacted communities

Maryville College is a nationally-ranked institution of higher learning and one of America’s oldest colleges. For more than 200 years we’ve educated students to be giving citizens and gifted leaders, to study everything, so that they are prepared for anything — to address any problem, engage with any audience and launch successful careers right away. Located in Maryville, Tennessee, between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the city of Knoxville, Maryville College offers nearly 1,200  students from around the world both the beauty of a rural setting and the advantages of an urban center, as well as more than 60 majors, seven pre-professional programs and career preparation from their first day on campus to their last. Today, our 10,000 alumni are living life strong of mind and brave of heart and are prepared, in the words of our Presbyterian founder, to “do good on the largest possible scale.”