David Myles Robinson barely remembers his first homecoming as a 1-year-old, but he points out an old photograph of his father holding him near an escalator at a Sheraton Hotel in Greensboro, North Carolina, in the late 1990s.
North Carolina A&T State University’s homecoming was like a holiday for the Robinson family.
For 10 years, David’s parents, David and Gregg Robinson, would travel nearly 600 miles from Detroit to Greensboro with their two children. Then they moved back to North Carolina, and would pack the car up with the kids and drive nearly 80 miles from Raleigh to Greensboro. The college sweethearts met at the university in the 1980s. Their daughter, Starlyn, also attended the university and graduated in 2012.
Gregg and Starlyn were unavailable this week, and Capital B will catch up with them during homecoming weekend.
“I was very indoctrinated early, just by exposure therapy,” said the younger David, who graduated from there in 2024.
Gregg Robinson (from left), Starlyn Robinson, Converse Robinson, David J. Robinson and David Myles Robinson in 1999 at a Sheraton Hotel in Greensboro, North Carolina. (Courtesy of the Robinson family)
The family of four will join thousands of alumni traveling to Greensboro from across the country this week to celebrate the university’s 99th homecoming. University officials and alumni said homecoming attendance has ballooned over the years to tens of thousands of people. Enrollment at the university has grown to 15,000, making it the largest HBCU in the country, and legacy attendees like the Robinsons are common. This year alone, enrollment increased by nearly 7%, according to the university, adding more folks to the ultimate A&T fall family reunion.
David Robinson with his sister, Starlyn Robinson, showing off their North Carolina A&T State University swag. (Courtesy of the Robinson family)
David is flying more than 2,000 miles from Los Angeles. The 26-year-old video editor wasn’t planning to go this year since he recently graduated. However, his mom said he has to go since it’s the first homecoming since his graduation. After all, the annual family trips to homecoming wouldn’t happen without his mother.
The younger David has plenty of university gear in his closet thanks to his mom. Sometimes, he said, she even buys the clothes two sizes bigger so she can pass them down to him.
He went through phases of excitement, except in his early teen years, when he didn’t care for homecoming. Then, he became a student, eventually joining the marching band for his first couple of years before taking a break due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was when he joined the band, becoming “a part of the machine and a part of a huge organism that is [homecoming],” that it all clicked.
“That’s kind of where I started to find my own appreciation for it,” he said.
He added that as a legacy, the majority of his time was spent trying to find his own experiences and memories connected to what he knew as a child.
Keeping a tradition alive
While homecoming is a time for current students to take a few days off from classes and enjoy campus events, it’s also a time for alumni to come back to their alma mater as an escape from life after college.
Alumnus Joseph Montgomery, the associate vice provost for enrollment management at North Carolina A&T, said people keep coming back to the school because of the quality education, affordability, and legacy. Alumni take pride in their alma mater so much that they’re seeing more families send more than just one child to the university. His wife and daughter both graduated from A&T, and he has another child currently pursuing a degree.
According to Montgomery, alumni believe in the university and remember their experiences when they were students, and he says it makes sense that they’d want their children to become graduates.
He added that there are cases where the university is currently educating siblings of three or even more.
For folks flocking to homecoming every fall and bringing their children, they are seeing a slice of the historically Black college culture, which could lead them to apply to A&T or other Black colleges.
The North Carolina A&T marching band performs in this undated photo. (Courtesy of the Robinson family)
That’s how the older David Robinson got interested in attending an HBCU.
Both of his parents went to South Carolina State University, an HBCU in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Robinson’s earliest memories of their homecoming were watching his parents participate in alumni relations, especially with their New York City chapter, where the older Robinson is originally from. At homecoming in South Carolina, he’d watch the band and football games in awe.
“When it was time to go to school, I knew I wanted to go to one of the historically Black universities,” he said. “That was kind of put in my blood early on.” He picked the university for the engineering program.
Robinson said A&T wasn’t easy, but the challenges he faced as an architectural engineering major gave him a foundation and a work ethic he was able to carry on to build a decent life, he said.
It was at A&T where he found a lifelong friend in Douglas Price.
Joining the marching band helped David Myles Robinson develop a deeper connection to the university. (Courtesy of the Robinson family)
As an engineering major, he met Price, who also goes to homecoming often. Price was the best man at Robinson’s wedding.
Throughout the years, Robinson’s son David watched his parents treat homecomings as a family reunion. Even though the younger David didn’t realize it at the time, it influenced his decision to become an “Aggie,” a nickname for North Carolina A&T students and other agriculture university students.
That’s not where their journeys stop mirroring each other. Robinson said he believes his passion for the band influenced his son to join the A&T marching band, which he thinks is harder to get into than the football program. With his son’s involvement, like Robinson’s parents, he and his wife began to be more involved with fundraising to help the band.
Where friends become like family
Robinson and Price laugh and recall the long nights as engineering students before there were even computers, the time Robinson taught Price to drive, and other memories that are tied to the university.
“[Price] nearly drove into my living room one day. We survived all of that,” Robinson said. “Those are, those are priceless kinds of, you know, relationships.”
Fraternities and sororities stand out on the yard during homecoming in 2011. (Courtesy of Douglas Price)
Price is driving more than 300 miles from Maryland and will meet up with his best friend at homecoming this weekend.
Although the family aspect and friendships keep the Robinson family coming back, Price and Robinson worry that some of the changes on the growing campus will impact getting around on campus and school spirit. Every homecoming, Robinson said, there’s construction on and off the campus.
A crowd during homecoming in this undated photo. (Courtesy Douglas Price)
In the 1980s, Robinson recalls only a few thousand students enrolled at A&T. Robinson remembers when you could cut across campus after the tailgate for the homecoming football game to get to the area where fraternities and sororities marked their territories out on the yard on the other side of campus. Now, with around 70,000 people attending the homecoming game alone, it’s been impossible to do this.
The campus has also physically grown, with new programs and majors being added, new dorms, and new faces on the faculty. Additionally, the fall 2025 first-year class has grown more than 10% with more than 3,000 enrolling, according to the university.
As his professors retire and his generation gets older, he’s hoping the next generation keeps some of the spirit from the ’90s and ’80s alive.
Immediately after this year’s homecoming, his wife, Gregg, will plan next year’s trip to their alma mater, acting as a coordinator for their community family of “Aggies.”
“I think that was just kind of the biggest indicator that I had of, like, ‘Oh, this is like one big family reunion,’” the younger David said.
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