Who sponsored the first collegiate homecoming?

We at the Indiana Daily Student would like the University of Illinois to stop practicing revisionist history. \nA report compiled this year by the University of Illinois Archives department is clearly biased and grossly exaggerates the facts surrounding the first collegiate homecoming. True, the first homecoming, in name, took place in 1910 at the University of Illinois. But the report refuses to give any credence to IU's Gala Days, which took place in 1908 and 1909 in Bloomington. They clearly predate the 1910 Illinois "homecoming" as the first collegiate homecoming event. The Illinois document calls IU's 1909 Gala Day a "relatively informal affair" that was not geared for alumni. But an Aug. 16 report by Bradley Cook of the IU Archives says differently.\nIn the IU report, Cook offers conclusive evidence that the 1908 and 1909 Gala Days were indeed both referred to at the time as "homecoming." \nA June 10, 1908 story in the IDS previewed the first Gala Day and referred to it as "a time of general homecoming and reunions."\nFurther evidence in regards to the 1909 Gala Day should counter any doubts. Numerous articles in the IDS and the Bloomington Daily Telephone describe hundreds of IU alumni returning to Bloomington for the IU-Purdue football game. \nTherefore, our historical victory over Illinois is two-fold. In the report, Cook argues that Illinois too narrowly defines homecoming as an event labeled "homecoming." We agree. Cook even consults three dictionaries, which define homecoming as more or less an annual gathering of alumni. By any of the definitions, our 1908 and certainly our 1909 Gala Days easily fall under the correct explanation of homecoming.\nThe old adage, "if it walks like a duck, and if it sounds like a duck, it must be a duck" is a perfect example of what we have here. \nThe 1909 Gala Day was centered around a football game. Waddle.\nThe 1909 Gala Day featured the return of hundreds of alumni to IU. Quack.\nIt must be a duck.\nAfter examining the Illinois report, it appears the University of Illinois is clearly sensitive about its claim, realizing it stands on very shaky ground. The report goes so far as to examine and discredit each school which sponsored a return of alumni prior to its 1910 homecoming. It even quotes a former IU sports information director who, in 1986, said IU's first homecoming was in 1910. \nBut facts are facts and newspaper articles from both the IDS and the local paper from the era present a preponderance of evidence that even if Gala Day was not called Homecoming, it was referred to as a homecoming and incorporated all of the elements of the modern homecoming, which students at both schools have grown to know and love.