Greek organizations announce Greek Week

Florida Atlantic University's annual Greek Week will be held from Mar. 25 - Mar. 31, 2007. Fraternities and sororities will compete in talent shows, athletic events and do a campus clean up. The fraternities and sorority with the most points at the end of the week will win the crown.

The 2006 champions were Sigma Phi Epsilon and Delta Phi Epsilon.

During Greek Week, organizations are not allowed to consume alcohol. Usually, all eight of FAU's fraternities and all four sororities participate. This year, the Multi-Cultural Greek Council, comprised of four small organizations, will combine and submit one team, bringing the total number of teams competing to 13.

For more information on Greek Life at FAU, log on to Greek Life.

Sun., Mar. 25
Basketball and football

Mon., Mar. 26
Education day

Tue., Mar. 27
Skit

Wed., Mar. 28
BBQ Pits, volleyball and relay race

Thur., Mar 29
Lip-sync and talent

Fri., Mar. 30
Football and volleyball championships will be played

Sat., Mar. 31
Campus clean up and awards

FAU in the hunt for conference title

With Florida Atlantic University's football team beating Arkansas State on Saturday, FAU is now back in the hunt for the Sun Belt Conference Championship. Winning the conference would give FAU an automatic bid to the New Orleans Bowl.

FAU beat the Indians 29-0, led by an outstanding performance by their defense - forcing five interceptions.

The crowd was smaller than expected, but the enthusiasm was not. With the alcohol ban lifted at Lockhart, students partied in the parking lot and came into the game to watch FAU jump to an early 13-0 lead going into halftime.

Brianna Bragg and Jonathan Styles were crowned FAU's Homecoming King and Queen. Both are resident assistants at FAU Boca.

Next up for the Owls will be Middle Tennessee State on Saturday in Murfreesboro, Tenn. The game will be televised.

Fall Family Fest biggest event of year

Over 1,000 people attended Florida Atlantic University’s 3^rd annual Fall Family Fest. The event included free food for attendees, a golf cart parade, a bon fire, Head Football Coach Howard Schnellenberger’s radio show, introduction of the 2006-2007 Homecoming Court and carnival games. The event was organized by the Program Board with the help of many departments including Housing and Residential Life, Athletics, the Alumni Association and Chartwells.

This was the first year that a golf cart parade took place. About 15 organizations and university departments decorated a golf cart with a movie theme. In my opinion, some of the better decorated golf carts included the FAU Police Department (Men In Black theme), University Advancement (Coach Schnellenberger and Dolly Parton) and the Student Government (wild west theme). Participants in the parade threw candy from their cart to eagerly waiting students, family and friends.

The bonfire was lit in an effort to increase awareness of the football game on Saturday. A 4-foot by 4-foot papier-mâché Arkansas State helmet was designed by the FAU Sculpture Club and throw into the fire by the FAU prOWLers. FAU’s football team will look for their third win of the season against the Indians of Arkansas State on Saturday at 4 p.m. at Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale. There is still no update on the booze ban.

The next homecoming event is Tuesday night on the Housing Lawn. The 8^th annual Timuqua Pageant is named for the recently demolished Timuqua resident hall. It will showcase male and female resident’s talents. The event begins at 7 p.m.

SPECIAL NOTE: Students will NOT be allowed to sit in the endzone at Saturday's game. The Athletic Department made this decision at their weekly game operations meeting on Monday. The department, after listening to players reaction and Schnellenberger's opinion, feel that the spirit and enthusiasm dispalyed at last week's game isbecause 1,200 students were not spread out over a 5,000 seat seating area (the endzone). Instead, they were confined to a smaller seating area closer to the visiting sideline making the noise louder.

Homecoming Week preview

Florida Atlantic University is celebrating Homecoming Week starting on Monday. Events are scheduled on all campuses and are targeted to reach all students - young and old, traditional and non-traditional.

Homecoming for FAU was anything but traditional until the addition of the football team in 2001. Before football, the men's and women's basketball team would be the center of Homecoming Week and would take place in February.

FAU nicknamed their homecoming Owl Prowl. This years theme: Lights, Camera, Action.

Friday night, as the official kickoff event for Parent's Weekend, the Alumni Association hosted a wine reception for students and their parents. Saturday, University President Frank Brogan will host a brunch at the Baldwin House on the Boca Raton campus from 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.

On Monday, which is the conclusion of Parent's Weekend and the start of Homecoming Week, Fall Family Fest is being presented by the Student Government Program Board and Housing and Residential Life. The fest will feature free food, a pep rally, a bon fire, a live broadcast of Head Football Coach Howard Schnellenberger's weekly radio show and a golf cart parade. The event starts at 5 p.m. and will run through 9 p.m. It will take place on the Housing Lawn.

On Tuesday, Housing and Residential Life will put on their 8th annual Timuqua pageant - a showcase of talent for residential students. The Timuqua Pageant is named for the recently bulldozed Timuqua Resident Hall.

Thursday will feature the Talon Awards, which is a food and wine reception honoring the Homecoming Court, as well as faculty, staff, community and student leaders.

Friday's headline event will be the comedy show with comedians Mon'Nique, DeRay Davis and Lil Duval. The show starts at 8 p.m. and will take place in the University Center auditorium.

The headline event for Owl Prowl is the football game. Kickoff against Arkansas State scheduled for Saturday at 4 p.m., and the team is expecting 10,000 fans. Tailgating will begin at 12 p.m. and will feature free food sponsored by Chartwells. Before the game, meet me and some of the other prOWLers as we meet outside of Indian River Tower Resident Hall and decorate our cars and then caravan down to the stadium. We will be starting at 11:30 a.m. and departing at 1 p.m.

The university and the athletic department are working to help lift the booze ban at Lockhart Stadium.

Sunday is reserved for the Homecoming Dance, which will take place in the University Center starting at 8 p.m.

For more information on Homecoming, visit their website at Owl Prowl.

Loss for team and for community

Only six days after 34 people were issued written arrests by the police for underage drinking at Florida Atlantic University's first home football game, alcoholic beverages were banned from the parking lot of Lockhart Stadium on Wednesday during what could be argued as the biggest home game for FAU football this season.

The team played against the pre-season pick to finish first in the conference, University of Louisiana-Lafayette, and the game was live on ESPN 2.

Fans, whether they were of legal drinking age or not, were given a white piece of paper as they paid their parking fee that told tailgaters there was no alcohol allowed or people would be arrested.

Students actually started to pull out of the parking lot and never come back to see the game since they couldn't drink.

No explanation from Lockhart parking attendants were given other than "I'm sorry."

For more information on this story, read Ted Hutton's piece on the Sun-Sentinel's website.

MY TAKE:
As a member of the football game operations crew, I can attest to the fact that FAU had no part in this. Lockhart Stadium was probably hiding this from everyone because they didn't want people to freak out about it.

Alumni was still allowed to tailgate. Why? I don't know. President Brogan was visibly upset about it too. Through a conversation with him, I learned that Brogan will be making phone calls this week to see what can be done for the remaining games at Lockhart which are on Oct. 28 and Nov. 11.

There are also talks to allow of-age students to drink inside the Alumni tailgate and make the Alumni tailgate much larger.

Tailgating is usually more fun than the game itself - especially at a school like FAU where we don't have a lot of winning seasons or play big name teams at home every year. Although the University of South Carolina doesn't sell alcohol inside the stadium, they allow tailgating outside. The University of Miami sells alcohol inside the stadium and allows tailgaters.

If Lockhart Stadium is so worried about liability with underage drinking, hire more police. You can't punish the responsible of-agers for the irresponsible under-agers. Now, instead of drinking in the parking lot and not having any more alcohol during the game so that they can sober up to drive, students will probably be driving "shit-faced" from a restaurant or house party tailgate down to the game.

Safety or liability - pick one Lockhart.

Football team, school, getting ready for ESPN 2

Florida Atlantic University's football team will be playing live on ESPN 2 when they take on the University of Louisiana-Lafayette Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale. This is the first time FAU has been nationally televised since they played Minnesota last year.

On Monday, Head Football Coach Howard Schnellenberger will be broadcasting his weekly radio show from the Heritage Park Resident Hall lobby on the Boca Raton campus. This is the first time coach's radio show has been broadcast from a resident hall. The Athletic Department is doing this in hopes that students get excited about Wednesday's game.

On Tuesday, the dance and cheer teams, marching band, players, coaches and prOWLers will be hosting a pep rally on the bookstore lawn starting at 11 a.m.

A car caravan will be leaving from Indian River Towers on Wednesday at 3 p.m. to head down to the game.

For more information on any of these events, please call me at (561) 297-8200.

First home game is victory for team and fans

There wasn't a new look to Florida Atlantic University's home football stadium, Lockhart Stadium, in Fort Lauderdale. There were still blue and yellow striped tarps, white press boxes and chain fencing separating the fans and the field.

But it was what happened off the field that was a victory for the fans and the Athletic Department.

Although the fan turnout was 3,000 lower than expected at just under 7,000 fans, there were new additions to the promotions that made the difference in the atmosphere.

The student spirit group, the prOWLers, are now part of the on-field promotions. The team runs out of a huge FAU blow-up helmet. The prOWLers shoot off t-shirts in-between timeouts and run a brand new spirit flag when FAU scores a touchdown. One FAU student even does pushups in the endzone for every point the Owls score.

One fan thought it looked like a good idea to do pushups and jumped the fence to join the student doing them. He was quickly apprehended. It was the first such occurrence at an FAU football game since their inception in 2001.

They also added a PA system and hooked me up to a wireless microphone. I start the cheers and chants for the crowd, band, cheer and dance team. This is something that we liked after attending the South Carolina game.

Students have responded with enthusiasm about the new promotions and excitement at the game.

The next home game is Wednesday against University of Louisiana-Lafayette. Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m. Parking is free for students with a valid Owl Card. Tickets are free for students as well.

Pep rally was well planned but didn't work out

Students walking past the bookstore on Wednesday stopped and tried to see what another 200 students were gathered for. The first pep rally of the year was a success - until the microphone broke.

The cheerleaders, dancers and marching band got to perform before the microphone simply stopped working. University President Frank Brogan and FAU Football Head Coach Howard Schnellenberger spoke without a microphone and pumped up the crowd about tomorrow's first home game.

"We need to win tomorrow so we can win game three, then game four, then game five," yelled Schnellenberger. He was referring to the team goal of winning eight games and thus winning the Sun Belt Conference Title.

Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. Thursday at Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale.

Crush Party

Friday night, the night after their "rival" sorority held their biggest event of the semester, the Alpha Xi Delta Sorority at Florida Atlantic University held their annual social event called the "crush party."

Each member of the sorority is allowed to invite two "crushes" to the event. Each invitee received a can of Crush soda telling them the location (Murphy's Downtown Sports Bar) and time (10 p.m. - 2 a.m.) of the event.

Students danced and karaoked until 2 a.m. The event is held in hopes that everyone has a good time while meeting new people.

Their rival sorority (in terms of having the most members) Delta Phi Epsilon Sorority held their annual "Deepher Dude," where males from FAU fraternities compete in different talent events for the crown. Money raised from Deepher Dude was donated to an organization that works with Cystic Fibrosis.

Other Greek events
Outside of the bigger events, sororities and fraternities are getting ready to wrap up their new member period, where new members learn about the goals and ideals of the organization.

Intramural flag football playoffs are set to begin Wednesday at 7 p.m. on the FAU Boca campus at Henderson Field.

Student Season Tickets

By showing their student identification card ("Owl Card"), students at Florida Atlantic University receive free admission into all athletic events, including home football games. But this year, the Athletic Department went one step further - mailing season tickets to every students home.

I was one of 11 students that are now sleepless since we woke up on Friday morning to go to class, work or meetings. All night Friday night, Saturday night and all day Sunday, students were putting address labels on envelopes and stuffing season tickets into the envelopes. The tickets are set to be put in the mail on Tuesday morning.

"Hopefully students that weren't motivated to attend football games before will be more motivated to attend the games now," said Vinny Evans, a freshman who was one of the 11 stuffing the envelopes. "I volunteered to help the athletic department with this task because I want to watch the football program grow. If that means stuffing envelopes, then I'll be stuffing."

The first home football game for FAU is Thursday at 7 p.m. at Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale. They will be playing Southern Utah, a team that competes in division I-AA, a division below that of the Owls.

Wacky's Wake

Wackadoo's Grub and Brew use to be filled with school spirit, pep and energy. And although the t-shirts, sports jerseys, pictures and fraternity and sorority flags are still hanging from the ceiling, there are now tombstones made of paper hanging on the doors, the columns and the walls of the restaurant.

Wackadoo's will die on Friday, Oct. 13.

Wackadoo's coined itself Florida Atlantic University's "official on-campus, sports headquarters" since it opened in 2001. Wackadoo's replaced Ratskiller in 2001 as the on-campus restaurant for the Boca Raton campus. Wackadoo's is a chain that also has locations at the University of Central Florida and the University of North Florida among other places.

Wackadoo's has gone through four owners since it opened. The latest manager to get fired was part of an underage drinking article published by the student newspaper. The new managers have fixed the underage drinking problem - but not the cleanliness.

From two different sources, I have learned that the reason Wackadoo's is getting closed isn't so that Chartwell's (FAU's catering company who owns the rights to every other food venue on campus) can make more profit. Wackadoo's is closing because of health violations.

Coyote Joe's, the new restaurant going in, should be open in the spring and is also a college-campus chain. According to Stacey Volnick, an official with the University Center, the new establishment will serve alcohol along with other sports-bar type foods including wings, hamburgers and hot dogs.

But what Coyote Joe's can't replace is Wackadoo’s’ rich tradition. Wackadoo's is where the men's basketball team gathered with over 300 students in the spring of 2002 to watch FAU's name light up on national television as they were named to the NCAA Tournament. It's also the same place that in the fall of 2004, over 150 students gathered to watch FAU's football games. Women's basketball also hosted their tournament-bid party at Wackadoo's in the spring of 2006. It has hosted pep rallies, radio shows, television shows and is a meeting place for many students who are studying or just taking a break in-between classes.

It was also used by Student Government Program Board who frequently did karaoke nights there, the Jewish Student Union who offered free billiards on Wednesdays and fraternities and sororities who hosted recruitment events and even some main attractions such as date auctions, Mr. and Mrs. Fraternity/Sorority. Three years ago, Wackadoo's played host to the Greek Week talent show.

According to Volnick, the memorabilia from Wackadoo's is owned by the university and will be retained for the use of the new establishment. But Coyote Joe's isn't going to be permanent. The university is in talks with TGI Friday's and Chili's to bring a nationally recognized name onto the campus. That, admittedly, IS for profit - but not for Chatwell's or for the new restaurant - for the University Center who has been sucking financial pond water for the past four years.

Good-bye Wackadoo's. Rest in peace.

Volleyball gets ready for big week

FAU's women's volleyball team is preparing for two games this week that could make or break their season - and their fan support.

On Tuesday, the team will host rival Florida International at 7 p.m. Tickets are free for students. The first 50 students in the door will receive a free t-shirt. The fan with the most spirit throughout the game will win a one-year supply of Pepsi beverage product. Tuesday is "FAU Spirit Day."

On Saturday, the team will play host to the Mean Green of North Texas. North Texas is in the Sun Belt Conference; so a win over the team means FAU advances in the conference standings. That game is also at 7 p.m. and tickets are free for students.

The prOWLers will be at both games. They will also host a reception with the Student Alumni Association at 5:45 p.m. on the second floor of the arena for current and potential members.

The team has had moderate support this year from fans. Because women's and men's soccer often plays on the same day the volleyball team plays, fans are split between which team to go and support.

For more information, visit www.fausports.com.