Track boys make their OWN letters -_-
 

A month or so ago a bunch of boys started wearing TBZ letters (actual letters, or at least they appear very real). I'd never heard of Tau Beta Zeta, let alone heard of one on our campus. Turns out, our track team thought it would be funny if they had letters made for them.

Does anyone else get really offended by this kind of thing? I find it insulting because they only do it because it's 'cool'.

Runners are hot. Leave 'em be.

It's not insulting. Wannabes don't understand that there's more to Greek letters than the letters themselves. Only the best are imitated. ;)

I try to save getting really offended and finding what others do insulting for things that . . . I don't know . . . actually matter.

heehee!:D

I'm not horribly offended like i'm actually going to do something about it, and I'm not trying to knock the track boys for being on track. It's not a big issue or anything, I just feel like I earned my letters, and it's kinda sucky when people just -get- them. I was just curious.

Yeah, that's douchebag move for real. But, in grander scheme of things, you're living part of the life that they wish they were, so it would be better to just ignore them.

Then why ask if anyone else "gets really offended"?

And the letters are Tau Beta Zeta, or TBZ? Not a distintively Greek letter in there. Any idea why they chose those letters? My bet is they stand for something that is meaningful (or humorous) to them.

As for "earning letters," given past discussions on that topic here, I'll leave that one alone, except to say that they're not wearing your letters and I'd say they've earned the right to express their team pride and solidarity however they want. Others are free to see their choice as lame and to laugh at them.

This is just like the "Sigma Epsilon Chi" hats that a group of guys had made when I was in school. They thought it was cool until they realized that it didn't actually attract women to them.

You're right, you earned your letters. Who cares about anyone else's?

When I was active on my campus, we had a sports team do the same thing. It might have been the hockey team, but I can't remember. They made up t-shirts, hats, the works. The letters they chose stood for something incredibly stupid (on purpose), and all of the Greeks basically laughed at them for doing it. After about a year, I never saw anyone wearing those letters again.

Remember, they don't have a system to keep this thing going. Chances are this will fade away into nothing really fast.

It's my experience that those who are new(er) to Greek Life tend to get offended about people using greek letters who are not members of GLOs OR swear up and down that they "earned" their letters.

At the end of the day, the guys faking GLOs just look like losers and the girls getting upset about it look like they're a few loops short of a full bowl.

Agree ... and whose to say that the track guys didn't earn their letters? Even if they are made up they likely stand for something to the track team. To the OP, I wouldn't worry about it unless they start wearing your letters.

As long as they're not wearing my letters then why not? I mean maybe they'll only promote Greek life.

Take it as a compliment! Obviously they like greeks if they're going around imitating them. Its basically like they're telling you that you've done something right.

i disagree. Independents are stupid people about greek life. if they see anyone misbehaving in greek letters it only brings bad PR to our community, even if they're not really greek. but hey, what can you do about it.

As long as they're not claiming to be a fraternity, and they're not wearing letters belonging to an actual GLO, what's the big deal?

There were a few groups at my school that adopted letters. The Lecture Series Committee was Lambda Sigma Chi; SIPB (Student Information Processing Board - nowhere near as stuffy as it sounds!) was Sigma Pi Beta. Everyone on campus knew they were not actual GLOs; any clueless freshmen were quickly clued in.

The crew team on a friend's campus made "Greek" shirts that said PPP. I thought it was hilarious.

Hilarious! Was their song chapter song "Row Row Row your boat?"

Somebody paid attention during "Revenge of the Nerds."

lol!!

TBZ????? GROUNDBREAKING!!!!:rolleyes: ALTHOUGH, NICE CHOICE OF LETTERS!!!!;)

ZBT:"Inspiring Today's College Men To Become Leaders Of Tomorrow."

A couple of actives in my fraternity live in the Cal ski and snowboard club how which calls itself Sigma Kappa Iota and I've never heard a single person here even comment on their use of Greek letters. I guess people in Berkeley are just a lot less uptight than other people.

Or maybe just too stoned to care.

cal folks are too busy fighting "the man" to care about skiing

Cal hasn't been hippie for almost 30 years. Campus is much, much different than the rest of the city of Berkeley, and the fraternities here enjoy going to wherever the hippies are gathering and making fun of them. If you guys heard about the tree sitting hippies, when they finally cut the trees down and made the hippies leave, a bunch of the fraternities (including mine) showed up with signs saying "free firewood" and other similar anti-hippie rhetoric. Please speak from experience instead of just ridiculous stereotypes of places.

If being a "TBZ" makes them feel even more united, good for them. They work just as hard to be a team as fraternity and sororities members do. :)

Why don't you just go to your local university store and purchase a track jacket?

Years back, when I worked for The Limited, we use to joke that we were all part of Lambda Tau Delta. One girl, who happened to be a Phi Mu, made up a sunvisor with letter and walked in with it on one day. We all thought it was pretty funny, but many of us were Greek (DG, Fuzzy, Theta, and of course AGD). We all said we would have shirts made up, but never did.

I only get offended if people wear MY letters who didn't earn them. If the letters are clever enough, sometimes I applaud "fake" GLOs. Boys of Poison (a dance troupe) at FAMU puts B Phi P on their jackets, and that's kinda neat. I was an orientation leader and I still to this day joke about the fun times being in Omicron Lambda. So long as people don't pretend to be something that really exists, then its all in jest. (side note...PPP...classic...ahahahaha)

OW OW!