Hanging above the stairs that descend into Sigma Phi Epsilon’s entryway, bold red letters read, “Fight like Phil Today.” As each fraternity brother passes underneath them, they smack their hands against the words, hoping to live out that message.
More than 30 years ago, a young Phil Cox lived in this same IU house. Sitting on the floor eating Domino’s pizza, the fraternity’s future national president likely had no idea a tribute such as this would someday hang in his honor.
He couldn’t have known then the extent to which his Sig Ep membership would change his life, that it would provide him with a career, a family and an unshakable support system through his toughest battle.
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When the doctors first told Phil he had cancer in February 2013, he had only two questions: Would he be healthy in time for Conclave, Sig Ep’s national gathering, and would he lose his hair?
“Yes. And oh hell, yes,” a doctor replied.
Since then, Phil’s life has been a tumultuous journey of very high highs and the lowest of lows.
He went through chemotherapy for the cancer that had crept into his throat, his signature red hair fell out, his clothes began to look baggy.
He went into remission, he was elected grand president of the fraternity, he started eating again.
Five months into his presidency, the cancer came back with a vengeance, claiming half of his tongue, most of his remaining body fat and his ability to swallow.
It’s been more than a year and a half since he’s had one bite of food. Domino’s commercials now make him cringe.
“To see the pain he goes through on a daily basis and never complains about, it’s incredible,” said Phillip Cox, Phil’s son. “He never makes me lose hope. He always has his game face on and looks at everything like just another step on the road to recovery.”
Though Phil is still fighting the disease with an experimental shock therapy, doctors guess he has months left to live.
In August, he was awarded the Order of the Golden Heart, Sig Ep’s highest honor.
“It represents a lifetime of volunteering,” Phil said, chuckling. “Maybe they thought my life was about over.”
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Phil regularly claims every good thing that has happened to him since college can be traced directly back to Sig Ep.
He came to IU from Poseyville, Indiana, a southern farm town home to barely more than 1,000 residents. Most of his high school classmates did not go to college, nor did they dress, speak or act like the young men Phil would befriend on the Bloomington campus.
“It really took a small town boy and turned him into a man,” he said of his time as an undergraduate.
After graduating in 1984, he worked as a regional consultant for the fraternity’s national office in Richmond, Virginia. It was this job that led him to his family.
He met a petite blond woman named Jane. Jane wanted to date Phil but was nervous because her friend liked him as well. When the friend moved away, Jane finally asked if she would mind.
“Be my guest,” the friend responded. “All he cares about is Sig Ep.”
Though that might have been true at the time, it quickly changed once the two started dating. They eventually married and moved to Indianapolis where their twins, Caroline and Phillip, were born.
“I want to be a good husband, a good father and a Sig Ep volunteer,” Phil said, listing the three things that now matter to him most. “That’s what I do.”
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Phil stepped away from his day job as an investment manager in January to focus on those three main roles: husband, father, Sig Ep volunteer.
Throughout the years, he has exceeded his brotherly duties by anyone’s standards. When the chapter at IU was struggling to get by, he wrote a personal check to save their home from foreclosure.
He has also paid utility bills — information that was new, but not surprising, to Jane.
Much more important than any financial contributions, Sip Ep brothers said, has been the donation of Phil’s time and friendship.
He takes fraternity brothers out to dinner and visits during tailgates. He talks to the young men about girl problems, homework, goals and anything else that might be on their minds.
When one brother couldn’t decide on a job, he called Phil. When another needed a place to stay for a week, Phil offered his home. When a senior student was drinking too much, his friends turned to Phil, who started calling the student every Sunday, just to check in.
“Phil’s like a second dad,” said Denton White, a member of Sig Ep who graduated last year. “After my parents, he’s the first person I call when I need advice. You really don’t get why someone that important and successful would put his time and effort and every moment he has free into other people. It’s stunning.”
Phil wishes more adult members of the fraternity would share their time and advice with the undergraduate brothers.
During his presidency, he created programs to promote adult volunteering within the chapters, firmly believing strong alumni mentors are the key to a successful fraternity.
Because of his dedication to this ideal, the Philip A. Cox Volunteer Institute was created in his honor.
In August, more than $800,000 in donations were made to the Institute, breaking all previous records for any Sig Ep initiative.
“He’s been a guiding light for me so many times,” senior Jonathan Coss said. “It’s unbelievable how he can do that for so many of us.”
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At last year’s Little 500 race, the initials PC were embroidered onto the winning team’s jerseys.
When Phil went into surgery to remove the cancer, he wore his lucky shirt the brothers at IU’s chapter had made for him.
On school nights, Sig Ep members will make the drive to Indianapolis just to sit and talk with Phil for a couple hours. Stacks of cards sit in his home carrying thoughts and prayers from fraternity brothers around the country.
“I wish I wasn’t going through this, but it has made me realize how lucky I am,” Phil said. “Most people don’t have what I have in terms of relationships. I just can’t tell you what it means to me.”
Nearly seven months ago, when the cancer really began to take its toll, a brother at the Sig Ep house in Bloomington painted the red and purple sign. It carries a message of perseverance and selflessness to everyone who passes underneath it as they hit it with their hands and hope to live up to the example of the man who inspired it.
“I think it means giving 100 percent into whatever you’re doing no matter what you’re dealing with,” Phil’s daughter, Caroline Cox, said. “Just because he’s sick he hasn’t given up on the things that are most important to him.”
“I guess a lot of people who don’t know Phil take it to mean fight your hardest to beat whatever’s in your way,” Coss said. “For me, it means fight for other people and be selfless. Every time I walk to that front door I think of everything that Phil has done for this organization, for me personally and for everyone he’s met in his entire life.”
“The days are long but the years are short,” Sig Ep member, Bill Holland, said. “So every day when you see that sign it might be a long day, but, in the end, all the time we have is so short and Phil’s time is so precious to us. He represents everything that we aspire to be.”
Phil’s two-year term ended in August. In his last official message as Grand President, he wrote to the nation’s Sig Eps about his sickness and how much the outpouring of support has meant to him.
“My story will never make the news,” he wrote. “But the power of Virtue, Diligence, and (especially) Brotherly Love is worth fighting for. And fight we will.”
