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Okay, another great weekend for me, and I'm sad to be home b/c I know I won't be going up to lincoln for a while now.
Went up on friday, and just hung out with one of my bros...very quiet night in Lincoln, as a bunch of guys were going to be leaving the next day to see the Dave concert in KC.
Saturday's rush event was great, it was held at a farm one of our Alums owns between Crete adn Lincoln, guy had a really great place, big pool, really nice pool house, volleyball court, and a couple of go-karts with enough space for us to have some fun. A TON of the guys that we had already signed showed up, and it was awesome to meet the guys I hadn't met yet, as well as for the new pledges to meet the guys in their pledge class. 11 of the 16 guys we had signed up to yesterday were there, and they had a blast together.
We also got pledge #17 yesterday, he signed his card immediately upon getting it. He is another sophomore (#3, way more than we usually have, but it's not a big deal) and he is from Sioux Falls, and had a couple friends in the house already.
There were also about 5 other rushees there, one from MN, one from KS and three Nebraska guys (2 from Omaha). The guy from Kansas lives very close to me, and he got a bid yesterday, so I'm pretty excited about that. He is a super super nice kid and I'm glad I got to meet him. I think it is pretty likely he will sign. He will be one of three known live outs if he does, because he is part of a Learning Community, which requires him to live in the dorms.
The two guys from Omaha seemed very cool in the little bit of time I got to talk to them. They are rushing together which always can be a cause for concern b/c there is the possibility that you'll really like one and not the other, but I liked both. I was really impressed when one of them explained why they were rushing together: one of them has diabetes, and his friend knows how to deal with any emergencies that come up due to his affliction. I thought that was pretty awesome and really sums up a lot of what Beta is about right there...goes back to signing guys who have always been Betas, just never known it. These two are down to us and two other houses, and our rush chairs think we have a pretty good shot, so I think they got bid cards as well, although I'll have to wait and see officially from the rush chairs.
I think that these two guys will be the last ones to get bid cards. Which leaves a couple of rushees who might have been interested SOL. I do know that the other NE kid had become a rush crush, which of course is always unfortunate, but what can you do, especially since he told me that it was this week he decided it was pretty much only Beta he was interested in. So when he makes a decision like that this late in the game there's not a whole lot that can be done. The guy from MN, was pretty cool, but I don't think that great of fit. I don't think he was super interested in us, and I know he was checking out other houses...
I'll be honest and say that before this weekend I was a little worried about what our numbers were going to be as far as pledges, but the jump from 16 to 17 while only one in number is psychologically substantial, at least for me. I now really don't feel like it's going to be a problem gettting 22-23 guys. With 17 signed there are for sure 8 bid cards out still, possibly 10 if the guys from Omaha got ones, so we could have has many as 27 pledges! That would be a really great rush.
Even still, this rush has been wildly successful in terms of quality. With all the pledges at the event it was great to see them rush up and introduce themselves to rushees when they came in, and actually got them a chance to pick who is goign to be in their pledge class. I thought that was awesome.
It's also been great for these guys to have so many of them turn up for rush events and meet the other guys we've signed and get to know them. Last night at the after party we had like 8 of the pledges over and you could see the bonds forming for this pledge class already. This is a really unprecedented opportunity since I know last year, adn when I went through there weren't that many times when the new pledge class got a chance to meet before school started.
Well that's the news from here. As more guys sign I'll post, and if I hear anything else I'll post as well. But with this being the last of the rush events, I doubt there will be that much more news.
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