Insight: Been there, done Frat

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

Whatever made a diverse group of college students choose a shy 17-year-old freshman kid away from home for the first time as that year’s fraternity pledge president, I’ll certainly never know.

Ed Pierce, right, is shown with
his fraternity brother Larry Brooks
at New Mexico Highlands
University in 1971.
COURTESY PHOTO

There were 10 of us in that group and many with more worldly experience than I possessed. As we gathered at the fraternity house in September 1971, it became apparent quickly that I was way in over my head. They were all older than I was and two had served previously in the military in Vietnam. Two others were college juniors, having transferred to our school after completing junior college. One fellow only had one leg following a car crash and had an artificial leg that he would suddenly take off to surprise people at parties.

I had just met these guys, and they knew little about me but here I stood after the first vote and chosen to lead this motley group as we tried to survive our time as fraternity pledges.

The first order of business was to protect ourselves from what was described by some fraternity members as “being kidnapped.” A group of frat guys would drop by unexpectedly in the middle of the night, put you in a car, drive you three miles out of town and make you walk home. To avoid this from happening and stay under the radar, five of us slept in one dorm room on campus while the other five slept in the dorm room next door.

Yet somehow at 3 a.m., the dorm room door flung open, and we barely had enough time to grab our coats and then squeeze into the back seat of a 1965 Ford LTD. It was a miserable, desolate and long walk home. It was cold and damp, there were plenty of rain puddles to avoid and angry dogs emerging from hidden driveways nipping at your heels along the way. But we all survived and made it back to campus safely.

As fraternity pledges we had to push the school’s cannon back and forth from the gymnasium to the football field and figuring out how to do that without running anyone over or blocking traffic was a tactical nightmare. Thankfully there were only five home football games that season, and we moved the cannon on Friday nights ahead of Saturday’s game.

Pledges gathered at the fraternity house every Sunday afternoon to study for what would be on our written test for induction into the fraternity. The local chapter had provided each pledge with a handbook of pertinent facts as to when and where the national fraternity was founded, and what each letter in the Greek alphabet was. But I came to the conclusion that no matter how many times we reviewed the handbook, some of these guys were just never going to remember the material needed to pass the test.

Another of our group tasks to complete as pledges was called “Escape Weekend.” We had to go somewhere as a group for 48 hours one weekend and not be seen by any other fraternity members. As it happened, one of the pledges’ family members owned a cabin about 50 miles away that was available. We cleared everyone’s schedule, loaded a cooler with ice, beer and sandwiches and all 10 pledges squeezed into the back of an old pickup truck with a camper and took off at 4 a.m. unseen by active fraternity members.

It was an adventure to say the least. One of the pledges, who suffered from PTSD after serving in Vietnam, brought along a pistol and he would fire it off indiscriminately outside when he had consumed too much alcohol. Unfortunately, one of those gunshots struck an elk on a property adjacent to the cabin, and we huddled together indoors hiding out and wondering what to do or if the police would come and investigate after someone reported hearing gunfire. Despite our fear and apprehension, nobody showed up, the elk disappeared back into the woods and by the end of the 48 hours, we were back in the pickup truck and headed back to the college.

The next Friday night, we all took part in something called “Three Fires.” It was a fraternity exercise where we walked alone to three different campfires at night in a large field and got to spend time speaking with active fraternity members about why we wanted to join them in the fraternity. They provided evaluations for each of us as pledges and pointed out our potential strengths and weaknesses. As for me, I was praised for my organizational skills and willingness to take on a leadership role among the pledges. 

One member told me though that he had apprehensions about me. He said that he couldn’t understand why I dropped Economics at mid-term despite having an “A” in the class. I told him that I was simply overwhelmed by the amount of reading required for that class and knew that it only got tougher after mid-term, so I chose to focus on my other classes instead and hoped I could someday take Economics again. He asked me to chug a beer in front of him to prove my worthiness and even though I detested alcohol, I did it, only to barf it out on my way to the next campfire.

By the second weekend of November 1971, our pledge class was ready to take the test and become initiated as full-fledged active fraternity members. One by one, we went down to the fraternity house basement for the test with blindfolds. Unbelievably, we somehow all passed.

When I look back now through the prism of 53 years later, I am amazed at how adept I was to survive pledging a fraternity and still maintain good grades in my first year as a college student. It’s an experience I wouldn’t trade today for anything.