Shawn Collins' Blog

Affiliate marketing and other stuff from Shawn Collins, co-founder of Affiliate Summit.

Archives for July 2026

Fraternity Rag Sheets: Brotherly Love and Hate

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It was the fall 1988 Christmas/Graduation party at the Pi Kappa Alpha chapter at the University of Maryland, where I first saw a fraternity rag sheet. As brothers and their dates mingled and downed drinks, a pile of photocopied, stapled pages appeared.

After my graduation party speech and some cheap bubbles

The front page read, “The Four Pi’s,” and everyone raced over to read the latest edition, which was written by the graduating seniors to roast the brothers who still had more time left in college.

Now, I have the old copies of ragsheets, but I am not going to show the contents of them, because most of the stuff in there didn’t age well.

But the issues of the Four Pi’s typically had columns of what was “In” and “Out” for that semester, as well as “clubs” that made fun of brothers for how they dressed, dumb stuff they’d done, where they would be in ten years, etc.

One of those predictions that was pretty close was for Scott Van Pelt, and it said he’d be doing color commentary on NBC. About ten years after graduation, he was finishing a stint on the Golf Channel and off to ESPN, where he still is today.

As I paged through that first issue I’d seen, I saw my name came up in the “America’s Most Wanted Club,” because I’d gotten arrested at our pledge camping trip.

My collection of Pi Kappa Alpha rag sheets

The issues of the Four Pi’s that came out at the fall graduation parties had the typical trash talk, as well as “stocking stuffer,” where the seniors left things behind for brothers.

I was usually a little anxious at the graduation parties about what might be in the rag sheets about me.

Typically, the worst I got was being on a list of guys who were “whipped” by their girlfriends. There were funny digs here and there towards me, but some other guys would get destroyed by words.

By the time the graduation party for spring 1993 came around, I was happy to get my chance to work on the Four Pi’s with the other graduating seniors, and we put out the biggest edition during my time in the house. We had lots to say.

In the end, there were laughs, feelings hurt, and memories.

The Fake Advice Column That Got Me in Legal Trouble

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I published four issues of a Greek life newspaper at the University of Maryland called The Greek Times, and I got a nastygram from a lawyer about content in the third issue.

It was an advice column that caused the trouble. One of the staff members, Kendra, would answer questions submitted to the newspaper. They were usually submitted by me and a couple of my friends.

But she said she received one directly to answer in the third issue, so I printed it verbatim.

the advice column that got me in trouble

The problem was that she included the phone number of someone she had a beef with, and that person contacted a lawyer after the Greek Times issue came out.

I was doing my usual routines, going to class, stopping by the IFC office, etc., and saw that there was a piece of mail for me. And not the fun kind of mail.

lawyer letter to me 1

lawyer letter to me 2

Uh oh, this was how I found out I had unknowingly printed another person’s phone number in the newspaper, and she apparently received harassing phone calls because of it.

So, I called Kendra up and let her know that her most recent advice column was the last one. And I sent a letter back to the lawyer to apologize.

my letter to lawyer

Fortunately, that’s as far as it went. The next and final issue of the Greek Times featured a new advice columnist, my fraternity brother, Aaron Falcione (aka Ernst).

Ask Ernst

This one didn’t get me in any trouble, so that was nice. I really enjoyed putting out the newspaper, and it was helpful in my development and real-world experience with budgets, deadlines, staff management, and dealing with a lawyer.

My Hypocritical Role in a Responsible Drinking Greek Organization

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My experience at the University of Maryland was akin to one of Winston Churchill’s speeches. Specifically a radio address he gave in October 1939 about World War II when he said, “It’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma…”

Shawn Collins using a weird two hand chug method

You see, I spent a lot of my five years as an undergrad drinking alcohol to a stupid degree. The blackout kind where I wouldn’t remember what happened the night before.

Sometimes, it was due to hazing. There were times when I had to drink lots of cheap gin through a beer bong. Some of those nights ended with me passing out in random patches of grass on campus.

As I got older, I matured a little, and only occasionally did really stupid things like stumbling around on the roof of the frat house or shooting out the windows of a neighboring apartment.

But I also did a lot of extracurricular things that a responsible student would do, such as running a newspaper, working multiple jobs to pay for college, and holding a variety of offices.

One of those roles was as the Public Relations Chair of GAMMA. (Greeks Advocating Mature Management of Alcohol). I was aware of the irony at the time, but I also wanted to do some good, add to my resume, and be a positive representative of Pi Kappa Alpha.

In the spring of 1990, the University of Maryland chapter of GAMMA ran a fundraiser for SADD (Students Against Drunk Driving), and we raised more money than any other university in the country.

This milestone resulted in representatives from GMAC and Pontiac presenting University of Maryland President Kirwan with a $15,000 check for the Student Activities Fund during halftime of the homecoming football game.

GAMMA at University of Maryland football game

GMAC presents a check to GAMMA

It was exciting to win the top prize and have that fat check go to the Student Activities Fund. On a sidenote, it’s cool to look back and see the smaller Byrd Stadium before all of the additions in later years. Look at that packed crowd!

Also, in the fall of 1990, I organized a GAMMA kickball tournament to publicize National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week. It was open to all student groups, and I promoted it across campus kiosks and dorms, but only fraternity and sorority pledge classes entered.

GAMMA Kickball Tournament

While I had hoped for non-Greek representation in the tournament, it was still a lot of wholesome, alcohol-free fun. And the Pi Kappa Alpha pledge class won the whole tournament.

I don’t have the scoresheet handy, but if I recall correctly, team captain Joe Vettori had the game-winning kick with a bases-clearing double.

I’d like to think that my involvement in GAMMA and other groups on campus provided some karmic balance to my dopey hijinks.

This post originally appeared at fraternitypledge.com.

Cisco, Private Stock, BB Guns, and Police

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Hank was my big brother in Pi Kappa Alpha, and we hung out a lot in college and sometimes got into mischief. This one night in August 1990 was one of those times.

Shawn and Hank PiKA Christmas Formal 1989

It was the day that two new roommates were moving in with my friend John and me to our Knox Box. There was Chris, who was in PiKA, and his friend and future PiKA, Dan from back home.

Nothing much was going on, so Hank and I picked up a couple of 40s of Private Stock malt liquor (“The malt liquor with the imported taste”) and two bottles of Cisco (aka Liquid Crack).

Cisco would get us pretty blitzed by itself, but it was rough to drink down, so we chased it with malt liquor to make things easier and to enhance our buzz journey.

I think Chris and Dan must have gone to sleep early, because they were already in bed when the Cisco and Private Stock kicked in. In our altered states, Hank and I decided it would be a good idea to take out our BB guns.

Now, since I spent 1989 doing 500 hours of community service, you might think I’d try to avoid doing stupid things that could get me in trouble. That was usually the case, but the combination of Cisco and Private Stock would take me to a place where bad ideas sounded awesome.

So, we had our BB guns, and there was some beef with the guys in the apartment just over a hedge from us. They weren’t home; we were bored, and one of us thought it would be fun to open a window in the living room and take aim at the other apartment.

My conservative estimate is that we unloaded 100 or more BBs into that apartment. The windows were like Swiss cheese. So was their TV. We had a time, and it only stopped when we heard people coming back from the bars.

We quickly closed the window and turned off the lights as the yelling started from these guys, who had walked in on what looked like the crazy shooting scene at the end of True Romance.

That was the end of the carnage. Hank headed off to his apartment, and I planned to get some sleep after hiding my BB gun under some dirty laundry.

But shortly after, there was loud knocking on our front door. I figured it was the neighbors, so I messed up my hair like I’d been sleeping for a long time and walked out, rubbing my sleepy eyes, to answer the door.

It wasn’t the neighbors. It was an officer from the College Park (MD) Police Department. I guess the neighbor guys concluded that only our apartment had the line of sight to obliterate their windows.

I answered the door and turned on the living room lights. The police officer walked in and asked if I had been shooting BBs at my neighbor’s apartment. I acted appalled that he would even ask me that question.

Then, he glanced down at our coffee table, which happened to have dozens of loose BBs on it.

He looked at me, and then at the BBs, and back at me again. I scrambled to come up with a good story.

“One of my roommates just moved out. He worked at a bike shop (which was true), and he sometimes worked on bikes in the apartment. Those are ball bearings from bikes.”

What a horseshit story, but he bought it. He left, and I went to sleep.

But that wasn’t the end of it. The next day, I started getting phone calls from the landlord of the apartment next door. I answered the first time, and he was screaming and yelling that he would have to hire a glazier (I had to look in my Webster’s Dictionary to find out what that was).

I denied it and said it must have been someone hiding behind the hedges, but I hadn’t seen anything because I was sleeping. I hung up, and it was over as far as I was concerned.

The calls didn’t stop, but they did go straight to our answering machine after that. The landlord was increasingly hostile and threatening. He claimed he ran a ballistics test, and the BBs in the apartment he owned matched our “ball bearings.” I knew that was not true because the officer hadn’t taken any of our BBs with him, and I walked up to 7-Eleven and threw them all out the next day.

So, I did what any Gen X delinquent would do… I made a mixtape of a bunch of Hank and my favorite punk and new wave songs. In between the songs, I put clips from the voicemails.

Eventually, the landlord gave up trying to collect money for the damages, and I largely behaved for the rest of that year that I lived in the Knox Box before moving on to the fraternity house.

Welcome to the Knox Box, Chris and Dan. Thanks for not moving out the next day.