Greek Week

FAU's annual Greek Week is taking place this week. Fraternities and sororities participate in different events including athletics, acting and talent. The organization with the most points at the end of the week is declared the winner. Delta Phi Epsilon sorority and Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity each have created a New York Yankees-like dynasty, each winning the past four years in a row.

This year's theme was countries. Every organization had to pick a country and base the weeks events they participate in around that country.

This year's competitions include:
Football (Sigma Phi Epsilon and Alpha Tau Omega play Friday for the fraternity championship and Alpha Xi Delta and Delta Phi Epsilon play for sorority championship)
Basketball (Alpha Xi Delta won for the sororities and Pi Kappa Alpha won for the fraternities)
Volleyball (Tuesday is competition day)
Track and field (Tuesday is competition day)
Skits (Monday was competition day - results not released)
Lip Sync and Talent (Wednesday is competition day).

There are also small competitions like penny wars and sportsmanship that are taken into account at the end of the week.

At most schools, this "Greek Week" is a joke and is described as a competition to see who performs better while intoxicated. At FAU, Greek Week is life. Some organizations spend thousands of dollars for costumes, personal trainers, dance lessons, etc. We have now Greek Housing or a Greek Center at FAU, so that's why Greeks take this week so seriously.

Maybe Greeks would have a place to call their own on campus if they started supporting more campus events.

P.S. - Not only am I in a fraternity - I'm the president of the Inter-Fraternity Council and a member of the executive board for Greek Week. Yes, I criticized the Greeks for being lazy. Hell, only five of the seven fraternities played sports and only three did skit night.

Will the stadium prove worthy?

Former college football coach Lee Corso was on campus this weekend and was featured as the key note speaker in this weekends fourth annual Owl Auction. The auction raises money for the FAU athletic department.

Corso talked about having a football stadium built on campus. With reports being published about a temporary stadium being placed on campus, Corso's speech couldn't have come at a better time.

Here are my thoughts:
Having a temporary stadium will be positive for the FAU football team. Our current home, Lockhart Stadium, is probably one of the worst (if not the worst) home football fields in college football. But remember - it suits FAU well. It has more seats than we have fans, it is within our campus area (Broward campuses of course) and has enough parking for our tailgaters.

Building an "erector-set" stadium on campus will cost nearly $600,000. DO IT! It's worth every penny. The excuse of "it's to far of a drive for students to get to Lockhart" can be confirmed. I think more students will come out to the game knowing it's on campus.

After all, with the increased presence of ATF and undercover cops at Lockhart, students can now find a place on campus to drink. I'M NOT PROMOTING underage drinking - but let's be serious, we all know it goes on. At least now they can walk home instead of drinking and driving.

In addition, we will get a taste of what kind of fan-following we will have when we have a real stadium on campus.

Here's the trick: the new FAU Track and Field facility is lined for an intramural field - 80 yards long. But if you look closely at the track, you can fit a 100-yard field on that facility. Someone just has to pay to re-line it. And there is already a parking lot nearby and an owl logo at the 50-yard line.

Bathrooms, locker rooms and press boxes would be the hard part. Like at FIU, there are temporary press boxes. But at FIU, they have facilities for locker rooms and bathrooms. I don't know where FAU would put temporary facilities of this kind.

My support is not only for the stadium but for the temporary stadium being put on campus IMMEDIATELY.

Go Owls.

The Best $10 Ever Spent

It's spring break. Barely anyone is on campus. The majority (if not everyone) who are staying on campus during this 10-day break are staying for three reasons:
1) Work
2) Athletic competition
3) They are going on vacation with friends/family

With the FAU men's basketball team coming off of a huge first-round conference tournament victory over FIU, the momentum going into spring break for the team was huge. But, because of the break, that momentum and spirit around campus would soon die out.

But for 15 students on Sunday night, the spirit didn't die out. We huddled in the Indian River Tower Resident Hall Multi-Purpose Room, where the air conditioning wasn't working, and watched the FAU men's basketball team lose to Western Kentucky.

I purchased the game for $10 from sunbeltsports.org. We watched our boys compete live. It was amazing. We found a resident that had a projector and hooked it up to a laptop and had an instant game-watch party.

Although we lost, those 15 students kept the momentum from last game going strong.

THIS IS WHAT CAMPUS LIFE IS LIKE. This is what campus life should be like.