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GREENSBORO -- Send them your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. Send them your Smiths, your Northwest Guilfords, your Atkinses, because it's homecoming month and the alumni want a victory.

High school homecomings always have been an occasion for parading vintage Corvettes and papier-mache floats, girls in tight gowns and boys in outsized suits. They're also the one night students and alumni expect the old school not only to win one for the class of '74, but to win big.

For this reason, it's common practice among high school football teams to schedule homecoming on a weekend in October when the weather is crisp and the opponent stale.

Coaches of powerful football teams will tell you otherwise, saying they would never trot out downtrodden teams at homecoming to dance all over. But the proof is in the patsies: In the past three years, Smith and Northwest Guilford each have been chosen as homecoming opponents seven times -- the most among Triad schools. Atkins has been a homecoming opponent five times in the same span.

What do those schools have in common? For starters, a knack for losing. Northwest Guilford is 6-22 since 2005. Atkins is 5-23 and Smith 2-26 (with both victories coming against Atkins).

It's no coincidence that the top teams in the Triad haven't been invited to many homecomings this fall. Of the schools ranked in this week's News & Record Mighty Nine, only No. 7 Dudley is scheduled as a homecoming opponent -- tonight at Morehead.

Coaches and athletics directors at perennially powerful football schools say they don't line up easy marks for the big game. Some say they are guided by money, selecting an opponent they hope will draw a crowd. Others say their schedule -- created four years ago -- sometimes locks them into a homecoming opponent.

Northwest Guilford coach Joe Woodruff isn't buying either explanation.

"Anyone who tells you they don't go looking for a team to beat up on is lying," said Woodruff, whose Vikings are scheduled as a homecoming opponent for three schools this season. "I've been on both ends of the stick. Believe me, when you're good, you go looking for a weak opponent. When you're having a down year, you try to find someone even worse off than you."

Smith coach Jon Oakley knows teams are drooling at the prospect of playing his Eagles for homecoming. This year those teams are Page (tonight) and High Point Central (Oct. 19).

"The guys know all about all the homecoming games," Oakley said. "It's not something you have to deal with when you are down.

"Our goal is to build this program back up so that nobody wants to see us for homecoming."

Smith senior tackle Antonio Mosley, who has seen his share of homecoming floats, said he relishes going on the road for another school's homecoming.

"Being the homecoming opponent means that school has marked you down as a win," Mosley said. "That makes me want to go out and play hard, hit a little harder to show them they were wrong about us."

Sometimes a homecoming game doesn't go as planned. That's what happened last week when Northwest Guilford's Homecoming Tour 2007 kicked off at Mount Tabor.

The Vikings upset Mount Tabor 21-20, when Zack Lewis threw a 28-yard touchdown pass to Robert Boyette late in the game.

"There's nothing like beating a team at their homecoming," said Woodruff, whose Vikings will get a chance to spoil another homecoming tonight at East Forsyth and again Oct. 19 at Grimsley.

"If you can't get up for another team's homecoming there's something wrong with you. Basically, what (the other team is) saying is, 'We think we can walk all over you.' "

Contact Robert Bell at 373-7055 rbell@news-record.com