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.
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.
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.