By Stephen Bilas, guest columnist

Homecoming is a wonderful occasion not only for our football team and students, but it’s an opportunity to reflect on the nearly century and a half legacy we all have inherited. It gives me great pleasure to see everyone upholding this sense of community through tradition.

Our university has grown tremendously in the last few decades and these changes are more visible still in our most recent years. The university has admitted a record number of freshmen without diluting its academic mission. This contributes an important and diverse aspect to the university: a new group of students eager to achieve and give. Students ahead have not only an exciting place to study and research, but also state-of-the art residential halls to which the Board of Trustees recently approved the second phase on. Despite these changes, students past, present and future should see themselves as a vital part of the whole. The university’s dedication to its members does not end when our students receive their diplomas. This week in fact, UK will be hosting several events across Lexington including a day at Keeneland, college open houses, a pep rally at the Wildcat Alumni Plaza, and, of course, the Homecoming Parade downtown. You’ll see Wildcats — old, current and future — all around town and campus. That is what homecoming embodies: an inherited tradition renewed with each passing year.

For that, I would like to thank each of you for representing the university so well. The pulse felt here at UK is in large part due to the efforts of those standing before me. Our accomplishments may not be realized for years to come, but the university’s name is forever attached to us as scholars and alumni. Your success is our success — those who have come before us have worked selflessly for us to enjoy the type of experience we have today. These experiences are dynamic. I challenge each of you to make the most of what’s before you. More importantly, I encourage each of you to “pay it forward.” To leave a more resourceful and stimulating place than you found it, only then can the university grow.

That is what homecoming is for: to celebrate the decades of dedication and commitment everyone in the Wildcat family makes. Please take time this week to enjoy all the rich traditions around campus and the community, thank those who have laid the foundation to which you currently walk as they return to campus.

Go Cats!