Alumni and families gathered at Principia for Gold and Blue weekend, which was filled with sports, talks, and a celebration of some of the school’s most successful sports teams from recent years.
The homecoming weekend went through a round of last-minute scheduling changes as storms threatened to cancel weekend games. Instead, the events planned for Saturday were moved up to Friday, Oct.17.
That night, historic teams got their rings, and Principia’s men’s and women’s soccer teams faced off against Greenville. The dining hall closed its service in favor of a barbecue at the game in an effort to draw a crowd to support the games and watch the ring ceremony. While neither Principia team could pull off a win, the men held Greenville to a draw for the whole game.
“There were a lot more people than usual,” Dachelle Carter, a player on the women’s soccer team, said. “It gives energy to the game.” That cheering crowd also showed up for the ring ceremony hosted between the games.
The 2025 women’s basketball team and 2022 men’s rugby team were both honored with rings at the ceremony. The 2022 Thunder Chickens won the National Collegiate Rugby Division II national championships. That victory earned the team a lasting reputation and moved them up to Division I competition, where they competed until this year. The women’s basketball team went on a historic run in 2025 and secured the program’s first Saint Louis Intercollegiate Athletics Conference championship.
“If we knew it [the ring ceremony] was gonna be so great, I think we would’ve done it way earlier,” Damir Conci, a member of the 2022 rugby team, said. He was grateful for the honor that the team got with the rings. However, the reunion was bittersweet. The former Division I team was limited to club competition for this and next year. “Every rugby guy now is going through lots of pain,” Conci said.
Parents and alumni also got to attend special sports practices and scrimmages with their former teams. Baseball hosted a batting practice in Crafton on Saturday. That was followed by a volleyball scrimmage with parents and alumni of the program facing off against the current athletes. A pickleball palooza also brought together alumni and former athletes.
“[Alumni] are connecting and seeing the campus with current students,” Merrilee McFarland, director of alumni and field relations, said, highlighting what sets Gold and Blue weekend apart from other reunions. “It’s truly cheering on what is happening at Principia today.”
Sports weren’t the only thing that brought parents and alumni to Gold and Blue weekend. The college’s rebranding launch and Monitor Night Live kicked off the weekend on Thursday.
“It got me motivated to start reading the Monitor online again,” said Kathy Erickson, mom of a current Principian. She felt that the weekend was also a chance to see how students live and spend much of their time.
The weekend also celebrated the arts. Musician Justin Froese, a Principia graduate who performed an NPR Tiny Desk concert in February, held a songwriting workshop in Davis Music Hall on Saturday. Later that day, Froese performed the song during a concert in Wanamaker Hall, along with the students who wrote it.
Gold and Blue weekend started with the launch of Principia’s rebranding and the 25th annual Monitor Night Live, the Pilot reported on each of those events separately.