Greeks go independent

This fall the riders of Pi Kappa Alpha's Little 500 team planned ahead. By last semester, senior rider Timothy Kolar said they had already made preparations for a spring break training trip, among other things. But in the course of about a month, the chapter was disbanded for alcohol violations and the team's plans were suddenly very much up in the air.\nVery quickly, Kolar and the other Pi Kappa Alpha riders were faced with finding new places to live, coming up with money to compete, including funds for the spring break trip and the other pressures that came with changing their status (and their name) into the independent team Fratello.\n"As soon as it happened, our budget was frozen and all the plans we made had to be reworked," Kolar said. "It was a big hassle and added a lot more pressure than there should have been outside of training."\nThis year, the men's race will include three independent teams with members who were affiliated with Greek houses that were suspended or removed from campus within the past year. Fratello's riders had represented Pi Kappa Alpha, while team Gafombi's riders previously competed for IU's chapter of Beta Theta Pi and team Corleones with Sigma Alpha Epsilon. IU's Beta Theta Pi and Pi Kappa Alpha chapters were removed from campus last semester; Sigma Alpha Epsilon was suspended in March. Members of the Corleones would not comment for this story.\nKolar and other riders in this situation say going from Greek to independent means losing needed budget money and a certain kind of support that comes from living and interacting with your 100 biggest fans at the fraternity house. But there is also the trade off of getting more sleep, eating healthier food and not having to worry about chapter violations threatening to end chances of competing in the event they have spent so many months preparing for.\nAlex Ihnen, assistant director and Little 500 coordinator for the IU Student Foundation, said upheaval caused to the race by fraternities losing the status needed to compete is not a new issue. Although IUSF's eligibility rules state that riders must typically wait a year before being allowed to change status, riders who competed for Greek teams whose chapters no longer exist on campus don't have to sit out a year. \n"The idea that you have to wait a year is that it's not fair to the team that you left," Ihnen said. "So it's a whole new issue if the team that you were on no longer exists. You don't have a choice, and we like to give riders as many choices as they can."\nIhnen also said IUSF makes sure these teams do not take names that indicate they still represent former Greek houses.\nA third year rider, Kolar rode for Fratello as a sophomore and for Pi Kappa Alpha last year. In order to afford to ride, everyone on Fratello has jobs and they paid for a van, condo and other expenses for a spring break trip to Texas. Losing the fraternity house also meant the team had to work harder to train together.\n"It's harder to get a group to ride together," he said. "In the fraternity, all you had to do was walk to the second floor. Now I have to trek four miles across campus to ride. We play phone tag all the time and you find yourself training a lot by yourself. It's harder to keep motivated training by yourself than when you're training with your team all the time."\nRiding without the luxury of a fraternity budget directed toward Little 500 has forced the Gafombi team to examine its purchases more closely, Mike Rubin, a senior and third year rider said.\n"We used almost all of our budget last year to buy gear, and we've been able to use it this year," he said. "It still hurts though. Like we wanted to have matching shorts for the race and all of the sudden we have to watch every little expense. Last year we could say 'Hey throw it in the bike fund' but this year we have to really think about it and pick and choose."\nRubin's teammate, senior John Grant, said he misses having the daily in-house support of his fraternity brothers, but he said living off campus means getting more sleep and eating healthier foods.\n"When I was a Beta, probably half my caloric intake came from fried foods and ice cream," he said.\nLast year, Kolar was chapter president in addition to being on the Little 500 team, and he said alcohol violations put Greek teams in a potentially precarious situation.\n"If one person in the chapter does something stupid Friday night, you can wake up Saturday morning and find out you're not racing anymore," he said. "That was a big worry last year. Being independent means we don't have to worry about being kicked out of the race the night before."\nRubin said concern about this issue is something Little 500 teams think about more than their fellow fraternity brothers.\n"Obviously every fraternity is going to party during Little 5 week," he said. "It's something that riders always seem to worry about but something not many other people in the house do. They say they care, but you don't really see as much concern on their part."\nRiding as independents gave the Gafombi team the chance to find interested riders from outside their fraternity, something Rubin said is an advantage because of a lack of interested riders in the former Beta Theta Pi chapter. But he said his fraternity brothers were supportive and excited as race time approached. Grant said this has continued even though the fraternity has been disbanded.\n"We actually just got our T-shirts today and everyone who was in our house will be wearing our T-shirts so a lot of the fans will be the same," he said. "We were all good friends, and the Little 500 is a great event, and they know how hard we worked. They want to be there no matter what, if we're riding for Beta or Gafombi." \nKolar also said these issues become unimportant when he wakes up on race day.\n"On race day it doesn't matter what I'm wearing across my chest," he said. "I don't ride for anybody else but myself and my teammates. People are going to support you whether you are a fraternity or independent. I race just for the pure competition or the pure enjoyment of being in front of 20,000 fans. I've never experienced anything as far as that race day in April. That's what keeps me going"