Thousands of viewers will watch IU and the University of Illinois battle on the football field Saturday, but few have witnessed the schools' historical battle over homecoming, which started nearly a century ago.\nRepresentatives from both campuses claim their school started the tradition of homecoming, but for reasons based on different definitions of the event.\nTAKING A LOOK BACK\nBrad Cook, curator of photographs for the IU Archives, said IU started the tradition of homecoming in 1909 with Gala Day. Centered around the Nov. 20, 1909, IU-Purdue University football game, the event drew more than 3,500 visitors to Bloomington and was called "A Precedent for Future Contests" by the Indiana Daily Student's Nov. 22, 1909, issue.\nIllinois archivists' research said this event does not constitute a homecoming, because it was not a "well-planned" event, according to Illinois graduate student John Franch's report compiled last spring.\nBut Cook disagrees, citing articles from the IDS and Daily Telephone -- the forerunner of the Bloomington Herald Times -- Bloomington's main news sources at the time.\nThe day before Gala Day," the Daily Telephone reported, "Never before has a Hoosier football game aroused such great interest over Hoosierdom, and so many people are coming in town tomorrow that the sidewalks will not accommodate them."\nArticles, including ones published in the IDS also reported a "Puffestival," which took place Nov. 18, 1909, where the men of IU socialized and learned "yells" for "Gala Day."\n"Those articles show about a month in advance how Bloomington was figuring out where all the alumni will eat ... They were decorating businesses and had special trains coming in," Cook said. "I think the idea that ours was not 'well-planned,' however you want to define it, isn't true."\nIllinois' report also cites that the Gala Day did not use the term "homecoming" anywhere in preparation for the event. Cook researched deeper in the archives to attempt to prove the report wrong.\n"I was really hoping to find something that called 'Gala Day' a 'homecoming,' but I haven't found anything yet," he said. "In my mind, I don't think that (the terminology is) relevant, anyway. It was a homecoming, but it was called 'Gala Day.'"\nThe year before in 1908, IU had a week-long celebration, labeled a "home coming" and a "gala week" in which alumni came back to help dedicate the new law building and library. Events of the week included a "circus" and an alumni banquet, but an athletic event was not included, according to a letter in the IU Archives addressed to alumni.\n"If you really want to get technical about it, our summer of 1908 homecoming was our first," Cook said. "It all depends on how you look at it."
ILLINI FIGHTIN' BACK\nTo the Illini, this event nor the "Gala Week" count as the beginning of homecoming. The school's research, spearheaded by the Chancellor's Committee to Support Homecoming, proves Illinois' Oct. 15, 1910, football game was the first traditional "homecoming," said Beatrice Pavia, managing editor of the University of Illinois Alumni Magazine and member of the homecoming committee.\nIllinois said previously that it began the tradition of homecoming but hadn't done extensive research until last spring, when the committee enlisted the help of Illinois archivists to put together a report to update the Alumni Association's Web site.\n"We didn't want to go around saying that if it wasn't true," Pavia said. "We wanted to be accurate and know our history."\nAccording to the research in the report, two Illini formed the idea of homecoming "early in 1910" and began planning for the game through the next several months. The Illini defeated the University of Chicago Maroons in front of a record-breaking audience of 12,000.\n"But homecoming was not intended to be only about football," the report reads. "Important annual student traditions like the freshman-sophomore pushball game, fraternity initiations, class reunions, and the Hobo Band were also slated for homecoming weekend."\nThis successful event acted as the homecoming precedent, according to the report.\nBoth schools' archivists agree that IU's Nov. 5, 1910, football game against Illinois was the first athletic event at IU to use the term "home coming." Reports in the IDS starting Oct. 8 of that year show evidence of planning a "home coming" like the year before's "Gala Day."\nEight days before the Nov. 5 IU-Illinois game, the Daily Illini accused IU of copying the idea of homecoming. The IDS ran parts of the Daily Illini's accusations in a brief titled, "We Copied?" which read, "As the Daily Illini predicted before the Fall Home Coming, other institutions have adopted that plan of drawing home the alumni, Indiana probably being the first one."\nArchivist Cook said the Nov. 5, 1910, "home coming" game was similar in purpose to the Nov. 20, 1909, "Gala Day," giving it enough right to be labeled as IU's first homecoming event.
DEFINING THE BATTLE\nArchivists at both schools have taken steps to create particular frameworks for the tradition of homecoming in their research.\n"Within the paper, we wanted to make sure we had a good definition of 'homecoming,'" Pavia said.\nIllinois' definition in the report, which reads, "One can define homecoming as a well-planned, University-sponsored annual alumni event centering on a football game."\nCook's report on the history of IU's homecoming cites definitions of the word "homecoming" in various dictionaries, and none mention the idea of an athletic event. For instance, Merriam-Webster's definition reads, "a return home" or "the return of a group of people usually on a special occasion to a place formerly frequented or regarded as home; especially an annual celebration for alumni at a college or university."
NO END IN SIGHT\nBoth Pavia and Cook agree the information at hand is as current as it can be, but there might still be more history to uncover.\n"I still would like to do some more checking to see how much more information we have in the archives," Cook said. "It would be nice to see some sort of planning documents or correspondence (for 'Gala Day')."\nPavia said she would also welcome new information to include in the research.\n"We all understand ... that if new items come to the floor, they will be examined for their authenticity," she said. "It may change what we have now"
