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Okay...
First, yes, Tommy's tutor is a Gamma Phi. She did end up getting into med school and is one of my M1 Classmate at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine in Omaha. I've known her since freshman year. Despite Tommy's obsession with her, and any sort of "created" storyline that they hooked up, they absolutely 100% did not. She has been dating a football player for over 2 years now (the guy who threw the pass to Eric Crouch to beat Oklahoma in 2001 actually). On top of that she is a really, really sweet girl, who really is very intelligent. Unfortunately, she has been getting a lot of shit from the Med Center about her involvement in the show, all the while, UNL is promoting her involvement...I know it doesn't make sense.
Second, Tommy's roommate is a Delt. I worked with him at Old Chicago, and he is an awesome kid. Super, super nice. I also know his gf pretty well too (formerly a Kappa Delta). Matt is a super Greek as well, involved in IFC and has done a lot of outside research on the greek system on his own (it was something we talked about a lot).
Ironically, neither of these two main players in the show even went to the open casting call. Both were found by producers in different places. Matt was a doorman at one of the bars in Lincoln, and Natalie was actually walking out on campus (I heard they caught her coming out of the chemistry building).
AS FAR AS I KNOW...the University did not get any money from the producers or NBC for being the stage of this show. However, I've heard estimates that the six episode run of the show is being estimated at somewhere between 200-250 million dollars in free advertising for UNL. As a UNL alum, I may be biased, but the University itself looks great, most of the people have seem really nice - if a little starstruck - and Tommy is the only one embarassing himself. If you were a HS student who happened to be watching, do you think that you might look at Nebraska at least a little, even if you had never thought about the place before? Maybe.
It will be interesting to see what the end result will be, and how UNL and it's constituents proceed from being known as "the place that let Tommy Lee go to school" but I don't think it will be as bad as most people expect, or as good as some people are predicting.
If you have more questions about the show, I'll probably be able to answer them, so just fire away.
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