Come on Freshman, if you want the rest of your team to hate you, join a frat.
Athletes always threw better parties at my school anyway. Granted they weren't as often, but they were better and more wild.
Come on Freshman, if you want the rest of your team to hate you, join a frat.
Athletes always threw better parties at my school anyway. Granted they weren't as often, but they were better and more wild.
90's Wolverine wrote:
Back when I was looking at colleges, one of my options was Villanova. To see what things were like, I wrote a letter to Vicki Huber (1988 Olympian who was a senior at the time). She actually wrote me back a four page hand written letter telling some great things to consider. The one thing that really stood out was how she said there were three facets of college life: running, academics, and social. She said that it was only possible to be successful in two of the three, so you needed to pick your priorities. She said she had seen several of her teammates try to enjoy the social atmosphere too much and they either ran poorly or did poorly in their classes (or both).
Personally, I think that a lot of people joins frats because they think it is their best way to make friends. You can form some great friendships with your teammates, classmates, and people you meet around campus. You shouldn't have to buy your friends by joining a frat, paying their fees, and having to go through their stupid initiations.
I ran and joined a frat and have no regrets; however, I do agree with what Vicky stated. I went through an intense hardcore old-school pledge period which casued my grades and running to take a dip. I blame this mostly on myself becasue I was provided with ample study opportunities and in some frats the older brothers will encourage you to keep up with your sprort especially if you are on scholarship. Even if you don't join a frat, as an athlete, you can't live the normal student life anyway.
Joining a frat as a runner is a difficult balance, but it can be done if you have maturity. Btw, some of America's greatest runners actually had a decent social life in college, although it sometimes took them a year to figure out the right balance. It is very difficult to be at the top of your game for 3 seasons for 4 years straight.
Sounds a lot like Oregon State...
Can be done, but not well. I tried to do it all. Track, frat, frat sports, girlfriend, school/study, party and sleep. While I did them all, I did not excel in any area except maybe sleep. I attended a major state university with an outstanding track program. Maybe a small school would be different. However, still very difficult to do it all.
Your track team will be a "brotherhood" like a fraternity anyway. Better to run use your 4 years to see how good you can be at running than how good you can be at partying.
jamin wrote:...Any of those...who were at least semi-cool ended up going Greek.
"Cool" and "Greek" are opposing terms.
To the OP: Only complete losers join fraternities. Those who advocate the Greek life will spew false benefits such as networking and so forth, but the fact is that you would be wasting your money. If you are running track, you will have plenty of friends and will not need the social aspect a fraternity provides (at a price, no less).
Fraternity members devote and inordinate amount of time ensuring that they only have to associate with people who are just like themselves.
At my school, there was:
-the pretty white boy frat,
-the Southern Gentlemen frat,
-the Southern redneck frat,
-the guys-from-California frat,
-the drunken slob frat,
-the wealthy African American frat,
-the middle-class African American frat, and
-even the short-psychos-with-Napoleon-complexes-who-had-a-date-rape-problem frat.
If you are so socially awkward that you can't imagine hanging out with someone who is not carefully preselected to be like you, then by all means join a frat.
College should be a time for expanding your horizons-- not shrinking them. Don't limit your exposure to other people.
4runner wrote:
Fraternity members devote and inordinate amount of time ensuring that they only have to associate with people who are just like themselves.
College should be a time for expanding your horizons-- not shrinking them. Don't limit your exposure to other people.
This is good advice.
I am a member of a decent Division 3 school (Finish either 1st or second in our conference in XC and Track every season) and a few of our better guys are in fraternities. We have one guy that ran 49 high, a guy that goes 50 low / 1:56, a 1:56 / 3:56 / 4:18 guy, I myself have ran 4:23 the season I was president of my fraternity. So it is definitely do able. I don't know of any D1 runners that are also fraternity men but, Nick Symonds was in a Fraternity as were several NFL players (Drew Brees, Eli Manning). The decision is ultimately up to you but don't listen to all the people who blatantly bash Greek Life with no evidence.
not greek wrote:
Please tell me you are trolling.
I'm not . I went to a university in a big city (thus making it a commuter school) on the west coast (thus making it largely Asian). The percentages I gave were accurate. I'll add that the student section at football and basketball games was 99% Greek and that 99% of the hot girls at the school were in sororities.
this sounds like UCI
bayarearunner9 wrote:
this sounds like UCI
That's exactly what I thought as soon as I read it. Really, it couldn't be any other school.
Except UCI doesn't have a football team ;)
Cicirunner wrote:
I like your style. You could go for runs after a night of drinking. I went on a 10 mile run after a party once (1 mile for every drink I consumed). I started out the run tipsy and finished sober and with a runner's high. It was the oddest and most amazing feeling in the world.
Like some other people have been saying, you only go to College once. Try it for a while and see how it goes lol. Keep us updated.
As if your lame YouTube postings weren't enough. This isn't true. The liver metabolizes alcohol at a constant rate and this rate is not affected by exercise. Translation - you can't run yourself sober. This is an urban myth, or a lie, assuming you just made this story up.
except UC Irvine is closer to 50% Asian American.
Lots of Asians go out and have a good time.
Aside from volleyball, hip hop dance is the most competitive activity on the campus. And the big hip hop competition is put on by a fraternity.
I checked out the fraternities but did not seem like a good fit for me. I'd recommend checking them out and seeing if you think one would be a good fit. You might regret it later.
"Fraternity members devote and inordinate amount of time ensuring that they only have to associate with people who are just like themselves.
College should be a time for expanding your horizons-- not shrinking them. Don't limit your exposure to other people."
Let me just begin by saying that I love running and I miss it everyday that I am stuck in my office for 10-14 hours a day, looking out my window at the beautiful South Florida sunshine. With that said, running is not everything. There is life after college athletics. And once you graduate and return to the real world you will realize that your experience was far different than your HS friends, and you will wonder if you would have done things differently.
Now, for starters... I think the above referenced quote is slightly hilarious, because what do you think college runners are other than skinny white males that devote an inordinate amount of time ensuring that they only associate with people just like themselves? Please, read every post on this thread and you will find a common ground in that you should stick with your own kind, running is the most important thing in life, your teammates will hate you, frats are stupid, runners are cooler than everyone else. The people on this thread are criticizing fraternities for being the exact same thing their XC teams were to them. The quote also states that "College should be a time for expanding your horizons... Don't limit your exposure to other people.." That makes zero sense. And with that said, here is my story/advice...
Fraternities are a good way to make friends and "be part of a brotherhood." Not all fraternities are the same from campus to campus or chapter to chapter. And not all fraternities are the same on each campus/city. For example, my fraternity’s chapter in the city of Miami is 80% Hispanic. We were primarily white/rednecks at my undergraduate institution, which was located in the South.
Teams change from year to year. Just because you liked the group of guys that recruited you out of HS does not mean you will like your remaining teammates your sophomore year. There is a long life after college and I haven't received one job offer based on my college 4:01 mile, but I have received plenty of employment help from fraternity brothers that I have never met, just based on my association.
I pledged in the Spring semester of my sophomore year. I waited for the Spring because I didn't want it to affect my XC season, and I was a middle distance runner, so training and life was considerably easier in the Spring.
Before I decided to pledge I consulted the "pledge masters" from all of the fraternities I received bids from, and explained to them my situation and asked if it would be reasonable to pledge and still compete at a high level. Some people were rude, but some understood my situation and offered tips on time management. The fraternity I eventually chose offered me the opportunity to run and pledge by excusing me from all of the “up all night activities” and having the president of the fraternity speak with my coach and schedule all pledge activities around my competition schedule.
It was one of the most difficult semesters of college in memory, however, I had the highest GPA both on my team and in my pledge class that semester, was one of four distance runners that got to travel on the 25 man conference championship travel roster, was named an academic all American, and was also named the XC team captain for the following season. It is very hard, but most things worthwhile are. Also, for the record, I only finished 8th in the 1500 that outdoor season, but I was ranked 6th. As a freshman I did not score. So, even with pledging I still showed some improvement. I won the event as a Jr. and set a school record, so it may have stunted my progression as a sophomore.
I understand that not everyone's situation is the same as mine and not all fraternities are created equal, but there is no reason you can't have a brotherhood with your teammates and with members of a fraternity. Today I am the alumni advisor for my fraternity in South Florida, and I currently live with a college teammate. I have been the best man at weddings for both fraternity brothers and teammates. I even have female cross country teammates that have married my fraternity brothers. Proof that you do not have to separate the two aspects of your life.
Furthermore, many people on this thread say that the networking aspect of fraternities is bullsh*t. However, I personally walked into my law school as an alumni and met with the dean of admissions and asked her to accept a fraternity brother that was a member of the chapter that I advise. He was accepted with a partial scholarship and currently has a paid clerkship at my law firm.
Many of the posts on this thread make the bold statement that "if you want to only hangout with people like you, with one track minds, and are douche bags... join a frat." I believe it is quite the contrary. All my track friends wanted to talk about was running and personally, I liked the vacation the fraternity life gave me from running. If you really want a broad college experience, do not let running consume your entire life. You don’t have to join a fraternity to get that experience, but if you are interested, you shouldn’t let your freshman or sophomore year of running stop you. I'm sure your coach may argue with that statement now, as my coach did when I was under his instruction. However, now he doesn't have much to say, as I am our programs largest financial donor; and I got here because a fraternity brother's notable father wrote a letter of recommendation that helped me get into a first tier law school. Something my school records and 4:01 mile couldn't help me with.
I’m sure this post will get bashed, but that’s what the internet is for.
Sincerely,
A retired runner with too much spare time while on vacation.
(P.s. some frat boys really are douche bags. I’m sorry for their behavior)
I was a very accomplished college runner at a top school (3.8 GPA, graduated Phi Beta Kappa in a very tough major), and being in a fraternity was one of the best experiences ever. Most of you who look down on fraternities think it's something like Animal House, or you go to a poor school where the frat boys are just idiots, or you're a social misfit - most of my old fraternity brothers are very successful people, many entrepreneurs among them, who are very dedicated to their friends and community. And because it was evident that those were the type of people they were, that's why I joined the house.
Never really affected my running...yeah there were a few pranks or whatever you had to do during pledgeship, but there were a lot of athletes in the fraternity and most of the others were pre-med/very involved in other student organizations so it wasn't like there was any pressure to binge drink all the time.
If your teammates look down on people solely for being a member of a social fraternity I would seriously reconsider my choice of school. At least most fraternity guys are friendly, many runners always seem to have a chip on their shoulder about something. And just to reiterate, I was very fast (scholarship athlete, multiple conference titles) and have been very successful in school and in my career.
Former AA wrote:
And just to reiterate, I was very fast (scholarship athlete, multiple conference titles) and have been very successful in school and in my career.
I have no reason to doubt that all of this is true, but this statement is just priceless. Suffice to say you rise to the level of the typical letsrun poster?
I Division 1 school with an very good academic reputation on scholarship.
There was no way, and I mean no way, I was able to join a fraternity.
The academics were intense, and while my coach would not have forbade it, I needed that scholarship as my unemployed single mother could not have afforded the school, ever. It would have changed my relationship with him, and in a negative way.
I did get into an insanely competitive honors program with only 10 members in it which had never had a scholarship athlete. That program took far more energy than any frat, and indeed, when I look at my honors classmates today and their stupendous achievements, well, I tend to think I was the scholarship athlete affirmative action admit (I have done very well, but these people are stratospheric). The program was for my senior year, though, and the administration was in favor of my participating. Make no mistake about it, though, my last semester was a 35 mile a week exercise, and I was running on fumes. I pulled many an all nighter just to keep up with the class.
The honors program did persuade me how important it was to live a full university life, and frankly, how Division 1 running, well, was largely a waste of time. My brother, also Division 1 scholarship athlete and a Phi Beta Kappa student, feels the same way.
Perhaps the real question should be whether to run Division 1 track or XC at all. Given the opportunity and economic costs of college today, which are orders of magnitude higher than what I experienced, I vote no. The right frat, by the way, does help develop social and connection skills, something that after I blew through graduate school full of hubris after doing really well, I sadly realized I lacked.
Yeah but what do you guys think about elitist private school fraternities? I go to a good northeast private school and the guys in the 'top' frats just seem so full of themselves and think that their little world is the sht. I didn't join one, and ran D1 instead. Then I stopped running after my junior year, and in retrospect I'm glad I did and sometimes still wish I would've considered joining a frat.