There was no history of Greeks in my family (too country) so I was something of an open book. The first day on campus I met a Greek…kind of. I was just walking around and saw this cat with a cane. He was one of the first black people I saw so I said, ‘What’s up Black Man?’ His response to me was “Pfft!” Really? Right at that moment I decided I was against Greeks. I was a disciple of Malcolm now; we all have different styles and standards, but even the President would get ‘carded’ if he was wearing the wrong outfit, or driving the wrong car in the wrong neighborhood. There are few things that rile me up more than some black person who carries themselves like they’re better than the rest of us. Anyway once I had my freshmen clique I figured I was set.
Second semester things had changed. There started to be some flaws revealed within the clique (13 teenage boys, what are the odds?), and like I said, I was getting friendly with some of the most down to earth friendly cats on campus. It was a great ‘coincidence’ they happened to be the Men of Distinction. Did I know what I was getting myself into? Well I had seen School Daze obviously. As long as I wasn’t fearful for my life, I had been through enough where I felt I could deal with the process. I had been called enough names and smacked around enough, a few more love taps weren’t going to break me (or so I thought). It’s definitely not for the weak hearted; my mother tried to talk me into quitting. But by the time I told her I was pledging I had already been on for 3 weeks, so it was too late to turn back.
I know everybody says they rolled with the best crew in college, but really my first two years as an Alpha are as much fun as I’ve ever had. You have never met a bigger group of clowns than the Alphas in those days. Anytime brothers would get together it was high comedy (pun intended). Fat jokes, short jokes, dark skinned jokes, body odor jokes, we had them all! We’d see our brothers from K-State and that opened a whole new can of worms. For anyone who was in the Frat at that time, all I have to say is ‘Teeth Sweat and Nurse Squirrel’ and there would be an easy half hour of laughter to this day. That was our thing though, we’d talk trash once in awhile on the other frats of course, but it would never be as funny as what we said about each other.
Saturday nights were something else. On top of DJing the Burge parties, the Alphas who were DJs were doing a show on the college radio station, ‘the Hip Hop Hype.’ I got into that real quick! Doing a radio show from 8-10, going to the Burge from 11 until and hopping our asses off! I’m not being arrogant, years after the college days had swiftly passed, females would tell us how they knew on Saturday nights you wouldn’t see our feet touch the floor for four straight hours. Oh, did I mention the girls? This will probably sound naive to some, but I really had no idea that being Greek was the ‘status symbol’ it was. The party walking obviously was also a major boost. I always smiled like a proud father the first time some Neo came off the floor talking about some chick just snatched them right out of the line. And they doesn’t include the infamous Inroads party where a girl grabbed my ankles and literally wouldn’t LET me get off the dance floor. Like I said, good times.
Of course, the step team was another level. The natural comraderie of the guys who made up the team. The silliness of the guys involved (which eventually trickled directly into our step routines). And for me personally, the opportunity to get on stage and perform. Even in my line of work, there’s only going to be so many opportunities where you step on a stage, and girls start screaming your name, and the homies start yelling ‘That’s my n***a!!!” I mean, assuming you’re on point with yours, it’s tight. It’s real tight.
Our Burge parties became so crazy the walls would be sweating (literally). We had a tight little nightclub (ironically called LA’s) that fools would come to from as far as Kansas City and Topeka to kick it on Thursday nights. We were making so much money we starting doing free events as a sign of goodwill to the community. I was the President of the Frat and I was in the middle of all of it. The cutest and prettiest AKAs, Deltas, Zetas, SGRhos and ‘indie girls’ knew who ’Spike’ was.
So of course, you can guess what I did going into my senior year at KU. I quit.
