Retro Fraternity Rush -totally 80's

[BSUPhiSig'92]

"Now, don't go and do something stupid like join a fraternity." The words rang in my ears as my parents' car pulled away from my dorm. It was September 1987, and I had just arrived at Ball State University to begin five, long years study in pursuit of an architecture degree. I was over three hundred miles from home and knew no one on this campus of nearly 20,000 students.

My parents had always pushed academic achievement, and while I excelled in most subjects in high school, my parents constantly reminded me that I was going to college to hit the books, not have a good time. While my mother had been in a sorority in college, she discouraged me from pledging. My father had only finished one semester of college before enlisting in the Navy during the Korean War, and had no affinity for Greek Life.

At the time Ball State had a rather schizophrenic reputation: outstanding architecture program - #18 on the Playboy party school list. It was no secret that the architecture program was the most demanding major at Ball State - one only had to look at the haggard expression on the students entering and leaving the building. I spent most of my first quarter living in the first year studio, leaving for what seemed like only short intervals. I envied the masses of students making the party crawl up and down fraternity row on Friday and Saturday night, plastic tumbler in hand.

I knew nothing about fraternities except what I had seen on tv and in the movies, and had my head full of preconceptions about what the members were like and what happened behind the doors of their houses. I viewed myself as shut out of that aspect of college life, especially since I was living in the honors dorm, and my roommate and friends in the dorm were sooo straight-laced.

I made friends with a couple of guys in my first-year architecture studio after the first month or so, Pat and Jon. They took me to my first party in college, and we started to hang out quite a bit. They had a friend Paul, who was also a first year, who had started gen. ed. classes during the summer. I didn't really care much for Paul; I found him rather obnoxious, but he always knew where there was a party on the weekends, so it was a sort of package deal.

Fall quarter ended around Thanksgiving, and winter quarter brought around Formal Rush for freshmen. Paul had spent a great deal of time during the summer hanging out at one particular chapter house, and Paul had known all along that he was going to rush that chapter at the earliest possible opportunity. He gave Pat, Jon, and I the hard sell that we should all rush "his" chapter, and that we could all be pledge brothers.

I still remembered what my parents had said, and I didn't see myself as the fraternity "type", but I finally was persuaded to just go through "Round Robin" and satisfy my curiosity about what some of those houses were like on the inside.

I registered for recruitment with Pat and Jon at an IFC Rush table at the Scramble Light on campus. We attended a mandatory rush orientation meeting in Pruis Hall that was packed with guys sitting on the stairs and every available seat filled. The fraternity adviser and the IFC officers said a bunch of things that I no longer recall, and there was a slide presentation on the different chapters with each chapter rush chair speaking for maybe 90 seconds...

We each got a rush directory with a 2-page spread on each fraternity. Most of the fraternities had a picture of guys in blazers or tuxes, a picture with sorority women, or a "jock" picture engaged in some sort of athletic activity.
There was one chapter that definitely veered from the norm: it had on the bottom half of one page, a picture of a guy that was clearly taken from GQ Magazine: cleft chin, moussed hair, expensive clothes. Beneath that picture was a simple caption, "None of our guys looks like this." We laughed our asses off at that.

[TSteven]

And....

[Leslie Anne]

Yay! A Retro Fraternity thread. Fun! Glad to see some guys get into the action. Can't wait to hear more.

[FSUZeta]

what a great sense of humor the member of that fraternity who designed their rush page must have!

[BSUPhiSig'92]

So the Saturday of Round Robin comes around, it's a beautiful, late fall day. (at least as beautiful as it gets in Muncie) My friends and I show up at the student center ballroom to be assigned to our Rho Chi group, where there are about 600 guys waiting to go through Round Robin. (fraternity rush numbers are nowhere near that anymore)

The Rho Chis are gathered around the front of the room, all of them wearing navy blazers, khakis, white button downs and repp ties. Jon and I get assigned to the same Rho Chi, who strikes me as being a bit of a meathead.
We will visit all 16 houses on this day, 20 minutes at each-no breaks and lots of walking.

Since it seems to be a trend, and a lot of y'all care about it, I will describe what I was wearing: A&F Khakis (from back when A&F was REALLYold school preppy and not just a mall store; a white turtleneck, and this really nice, Woolrich sweater that I still have (but don't fit into anymore), and my Bean blucher moccasins.

We visited the following 16 chapters for round robin (and keeping in the style of the others):

VW Rabbit Cabriolet
Ford
Oldsmobile
Hyundai
Chevy Monte Carlo
Nissan
Porsche
Buick
VW Microbus
Camaro
BMW
Corvette
Yugo
Honda
Dodge
Mom's station wagon

I've forgotten a lot of what happened at some of the houses, but here are some of the highlights:

VW: Well, to be blunt, I felt more like I was being hit on rather than rushed!

Ford: My Rho Chi belonged to this one. Pretty much the whole chapter seemed like him, and when we went in the house, there was NO furniture on the entire main floor - bizarre.

Oldsmobile: Had an active brother that was - I swear - at least 50 years old. Grey hair and a porn-star mustache. I asked one of the (younger) actives if he was an adviser, and he said "No, he's an active brother." They also had a tiny chapter with a house that could only house 4 guys.

Nissan: Had their round robin party in the garage behind their house. I saw inside the front door of the house, and there was this HUGE hole in the floor of the living room, going down to the basement. They showed us really crappy blueprints of their upcoming new house that was designed by a guy a year ahead of me...

VW Microbus: Showed us this loft/den-type thing that was essentially their opium den or something.

Porsche: We all referred to it as "Polo House" because everyone was wearing Polo cologne and shirts. They swarmed all over me, but ignored most of the other guys.

Monte Carlo: They seemed pretty cool and the guy I talked to was nice.

Honda: Snapped their fingers all the time, all wore identical blue blazers & ties, talked about their famous alumni (only one actually from their chapter) and showed a slide show

Corvette: Pretty cool, the guys were nice, very athletic house.

BMW: Great house, BMOC chapter. First guy I talked to actually turned and walked away from me in mid-sentence. Their rush chair tried to make the save, but...

Yugo: Paul's chapter that he swore we would all love. Not impressed at all.

Mom's station wagon: 'nuff said

Buick: Really friendly guys, who asked me a lot of questions about St. Louis and had a Chow mascot.

[UGAalum94]

Ball State is David Letterman's school right?

(I'm mean, it's so much more, I'm sure, but it's the place he went and where he gives the C student scholarship, right)

I'm feeling like I might spot Sigma Chi in the list, maybe?

[Leslie Anne]

Originally Posted by BSUPhiSig'92

VW: Well, to be blunt, I felt more like I was being hit on rather than rushed!

VW Microbus: Showed us this loft/den-type thing that was essentially their opium den or something.

Mom's station wagon: 'nuff said

This is just too funny!

So far, I think Porsche, Monte Carlo, Honda, Corvette, and Buick sound promising.

Looking forward to more.

[KDclassy602]

I'm a Kappa Delta at Ball State right now and the majority of my best guy friends are Phi Sigs. You and all of the other older members of the Epsilon Tau chapter must have been great guys to have recruited the amazing actives you have there now. I loved reading this thread and knowing their chapter was awesome even back then.