Frats prove they're game for rushes

For several fraternities, yesterday was game day. Phi Sigma Kappa watched professional football. Sigma Chi played volleyball. Next door, Alpha Tau Omega played ping-pong. And Phi Delta Theta offered grills full of wild game. But the name game was the game that was most crucial yesterday as both Interfraternity Council houses and freshmen attempted to put their best feet forward during the opening day of fraternity rush. Yesterday's barbecues and smokers and tonight's Monday Night Football parties begin a four-week-long process in which rushes try to identify the house which best fits their personality and brothers try to find rushes who best fit their house. Participating in the third year of dry rush, potential brothers spent yesterday wandering from house to house meeting name-tagged brothers, collecting cups and other paraphernalia, eating mounds of food and emptying two-liter bottles of soda. While houses varied in the time spent planning rush activities, brothers across campus stressed that rush is one of the year's central events. According to fraternity members, fraternities plan more events during the first few weeks of rush -- when rushes can attend events at any fraternity -- both to introduce rushes to the personality of the house and its members and to attract a large number of rushes to the house. As chapters begin holding invitation-only events after the first or second week, they hold fewer house-wide activities and concentrate on getting to know rushes more personally, members said. But games continue to dominate the list of formal rush events. During the next four weeks, Pi Kappa Alpha brothers will organize trips to miniature golf courses and batting cages and will host a three-on-three basketball tournament with teams composed of both rushes and brothers. Almost every University chapter holds both Monday Night Football gatherings and a casino night, featuring poker, blackjack and sometimes roulette as brothers and pledges win and lose thousands in funny money. And if rushes are not enticed by watching games, they may eat game. Phi Delt's "Game Hunt" barbecue, featured "humanely raised" game such as alligator, rabbit, buffalo, and the traditional 100-pound pig. Most fraternities offered simpler fare. Phi Kap Rush Chairperson Marty Voelker said his house made several trips to the market to purchase the 150 hamburgers, 50 hot dogs, and gallons of soda neccesary to feed the nearly 100 rushes who came to the house yesterday. Brothers at several other houses estimated that they spent approximately $200 feeding rushes hamburgers and hot dogs. "[Rushes] hit so many houses they've got it made," Voelker said. "They never have to eat on weekends."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.