The Ponies have a new coach. It’s our old one, Coach Jones explaining to the alums that he was merely looking at “opportunities”, though I don’t think I’d try that one at home. See! There is Christmas in June, after all! To show the Mustang faithful that “we won’t get fooled again—oh, no!” Coach took the team down to Birmingham, where they still “love the Guv-nah,” and made the Big East look like the Big East Texas.
The beer Swallows returned to the Greeks version of Capistrano last week, kicking off Rush, not Limbaugh, but the fraternity and sorority kind. That completed, more than a few freshmen males aren’t feeling quite so “fresh” anymore as they regroup for Pledge-ship, a sort of “sneak peak” at matrimony in that the first week of both can be euphoric, followed by a few “What the hells?” when the realization sets in that you don’t commit to something for nothing. Fraternity and sorority relations outlast a lot of marital ones, by the way. Some waistlines are about to expand and even more GPAs are about to contract. You’d get better odds on Rick Perry than to bet against me on that one.
“Let me get this straight,” said Dad, after I came home from the end of the Pledge Semester with a report card lower than Tim Tebow’s last QB Rating. “You have the mental capacity to memorize the complete names and hometowns of 100 guys, plus the history of some damned fraternity, but you can barely pass 12 hours of basket-weaving classes?” Said me, “Honestly, pop, I can barely remember anything about those basket-weaving classes.” Said he, “Well, you might have a little alcohol problem.” Said me, “Not at all. Greenville Avenue is open seven days a week.” That wisdom accompanied me to work in the oilfields that incredibly hot Texas summer. “Maybe you’ll remember why you want to stay in school,” he growled the first week I came home from the pipeline looking like I was homeless. “What the hell does that shirt say?” the welder asked me, looking at the Greek letters, on my first day.
Non-Greeks, of course, are quick to point out that the Greeks– the fraternity and sorority kind, not the ones who make Baklava and eat figs—are an elitist bunch with a snooty attitude. Some could be, but it’s because of the SMU Greeks that certain economies in Dallas thrive, like bars, restaurants and law enforcement, while the economy in the real Greece is, well, out of grease. The SMU Greek treasurers assure me there is no Greek debt crisis since they’re shrewd enough to extend credit only to kids whose parents can pay it back. Perhaps the real Greeks would do well to hold their next economic summit right here on SMU Boulevard, maybe get the Kappas and Thetas over to party with these once-we-were -tycoons, too. “Marry me and we go back to Greece and I buy you big house to live in,” might say a once-tycoon. “But I already live in a big house right here,” might say the Kappa, “with 30 of my sisters.”
By the way, congrats to my stepson for pledging Phi Delt. Now, try to get some rest. Ha!
Rick Larson, the Alumni Guy, is a 1981 graduate of SMU (as well as a member of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity)
