WHAT REALLY IS HAZING?
By Whitey Awl
The famous alumni, such as Johnny Carson and John Ritter, didn't show up at the first Fiji rush party in the fall of 2002 at UC Santa Barbara, but the chapter members impressed me and a couple dozen other freshmen with a slide show of big Fiji houses at other California campuses, and a 15-min. video of chapter socials and intramurals from previous years. A brother called "Ree" was introduced as the campus Interfraternity Council president, and he talked about the community service projects, blood drives, and concerts sponsored by the group, emphasing that many were for "members and pledges and dates only."
Several asked questions about the cost, and we learned that while dues were fairly high, this was a membership for life - and per day the cost wasn't much. The AAA scholarships offered by Fiji's national chapter to pledges with a 3.0 or better average might help. A member might even get a free trip to the next Fiji convention, the 2004 Ekklesia in Atlanta, GA.
Eventually, I was part of an eight-man pledge class, and "Grasso" was our pledge trainer.
At our first pledge meeting, we got the Pledge Education Handbook, and discovered a list of 33 examples of hazing. "The penalties for hazing," it said, "are extremely severe. There is no room for error. If you think something might be hazing, it probably is ,,, This is a serious matter."
Pledge officers were elected, and I was named VP. A tall blonde kid named Eric was the president, and Jase was the secy.-treas. We were told to get to know our pledge class and the chapter officers names and hometowns.
Our first assigned pledge project was called "letters to mommy and daddy." Eric was given a form letter, and we had to find a word processor to personalize and print a letter on chapter stationary and an envelope to each of our parents. "Hazing is not a part of our Fraternity or its development process," it said. "If for any reason you feel your son has been subject to any prohibited activities, please do not hesitate to contact our International Headquarters in Lexington, KY, the Univ. of California, or me." We had two days to get the letters done and returned for the chapter president's signature. We even had to furnish the stamps.
Each pledge was assigned a small part of the house to clean daily, and mine was to vacuum and clean the two living rooms on the main floor. Two pledges shared the heavily used bath and shower room. After doing our assignment, which took less than a half hour, an active brother had to check our work.
------------------------------------------ FIJI'S LIST OF 33. 1. Calisthenics 2. Nudity 8. Pushing, shoving pledges 12. Line-ups 18. Putting pledges in a room which is uncomfortable 25. Yelling or screaming at pledges 29. Expecting pledges to do anything that the initiated members would refuse to do ------------------------------------------
The next pledge meeting was Tuesday night, and after a short bit of talk about the upcoming Homecoming party, we were sent into the living room, where the brothers had just completed their meeting, for the Flag Ceremony. The only light was from eight candles.
While the brothers sat around the room, the pledges were given a large Fiji flag and told to hold it taut with one hand, braced at attention. Grasso explained that this was the first pledge test. It a pledge missed a question, he had to drop his hand from the flag. If the flag touched the floor, there would be hell to pay.
The first few questions were easy: "Have you missed a pledge meeting? Have you skipped a class? Is your room clean?" Quickly, though, Jess and Darryl, who had forgotten to bring their checks for the pledge fee, dropped the flag when asked "Have you missed a bill payment?"
Two pledges, Jeff and Julian, had missed the weekend's mixer with the Thetas, and the flag had only four hands holding it.
"This flag is exactly like our chapter," said Grasso. "It needs the support of everyone or it sags, gets wrinkled, or folds." It quickly sagged to the ground on one side, when neither Eric or I could remember the name and hometown of the chapter president or VP. Only Scott and Jase were still holding on when Grasso asked who knew his hometown and his girl friend's sorority, and the flag was now on the floor.
The members erupted as the flag fell, and I had three guys yelling in my face and asking more questions. Two members took the flag, and carefully folded it, making a Marine drill team proud if they had seen it.
Soon all the pledges were doing push-ups, jumping jacks, and sit-ups.
Then we were told to return to the flag formation, holding an imaginary flag. Grasso asked Eric if the pledges would like another chance to prove they want to be Fijis, and of course Eric said yes.
The second chance would be a personal flag ceremony, and Eric was told to put the pledges in line, with the smartest first. For unknown reasons, he put Julian first and me second. Julian was told to stand in the middle of the living room, and the other seven were led to the basement, which was nearly dark. We could hear some commotion upstairs, but couldn't understand anything.
After about five minutes, Grasso's assistant, Heath, came downstairs, told me to stand up, and blindfolded me with a towel. I was led upstairs, and felt I was in the middle of the living room, and there were stilll lots of brothers there.
"Do you want a second chance? Will you wrap your miserable self in the flag?", asked Grasso, and I said "OK."
"It's OK, Sir", yelled the brothers, and I corrected myself.
The rule, I learned, was that my body was wrapped in the flag, and that my flag, my clothes, would be dropping if I missed any questions. I was only wearing shorts and a T-shirt, so I knew I wouldn't be in this game long. The question was "who are your pledge brothers, and where are they from? You lose one item for every miss."
"Pledge president?" I got that right. Eric from San Simeon.
"Which pledge is from La Jolla?" I had no idea, and they yelled "Take it off." I started with a shoe, but they yelled "shoes don't count." I took my T-shirt off over my blindfold, and dropped it.
My shorts were gone two questions later, and my boxers next. I had been a high school swimmer, and had occasionaly been in the showers with teammates, but I'd never been naked in front of 40 or 50 screaming college guys. They pushed me over to where Julian was standing, and I could feel his naked bod touching mine.
For about the next half-hour, they brought pledges up from the basement, stripped them with a few questions, and had eight blindfolded pledges lined up naked.
Then Drew, the president, said "It's time for the `Best Pledge' award." Each pledge was led to the center of the room, and told to rotate completely around. After each guy did this, Drew said "without even voting, we have a clear winner, the Best Pledge, the fall pledge with the biggest dick, is our tall blond from San Simeon, Eric." Our blindfolds were ripped off, and we saw Eric in the middle of the room and he had an impressive five or six soft inches on display. Glancing around, it was obvious no other pledge was close.
Then Drew said "let's see who this fall's Super Most Excellent Pledge will be? I have a pretty good guess, but let's get `em hard to be sure. Do it, boys." Now I had been in the showers, and I had even played around with some neighbor boys in our tree house, but this was something new. I glanced at the others, and Eric and Jase were already playing with themselves.
"There's one more rule," said Drew. "You can't touch your dick. If you can think it hard within a minute, OK. After a minute, your pledge brothers will help you."
I didn't know what thought would get my dick hard in a minute, and my thoughts of Playboy princesses and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition were useless, as the time expired. Nobody was hard.
"Get back in order, like Eric chose," we were ordered, and then we made a circle facing out. This put me between to Julian and Jase, and soon Julian was fondling me and I had Jase's semi-hard one in my right palm.
"The two minutes start now," said Drew. "If you're not hard in two minutes, we may have to resort to the oral system."
I had a pretty good idea what the oral system involved, and Julian was doing a pretty good job as my dick grew from four to six inches, and I had a boner to be proud of. It felt like Jase was pretty hard too, when they announced that 30 seconds were left. His didn't feel as big as mine, but it was fully boned on time.
I couldn't see around the circle, but the brothers soon let us know that Eric didn't have a boner. It looked like the oral system would soon be explained.
To choose the Super Most Excellent Pledge, we were again sent to the middle of the room and rotated. It looked to me like Jess was the longest, although Scott's was much thicker and nearly as long. The well-prepared brothers had a ruler handy, and Jess was the winner. It was obvious that Jase was well hung, with large drooping balls, but his five-incher was the smallest.
Fijis are known for pledge class unity, said Drew, and this will be the first test of unity. "Will you all volunteer to provide the oral system for poor never-had-a-hard-on Eric? Will you prove that after only a week of pledge life, you're unified and tight? Will you prove that you want to support a pledge with a problem? Will you prove it tonight?"
Eric was now standing in front of us, with a partial boner, and seven of us with boners are facing him. "If you will volunteer, take one step forward," says Drew.
It was a long moment, a moment of decision for me and the other six, but I already felt I wanted to be a Fiji and I thought the others did too. I felt a little movement, and our tightly grouped line took a step forward.
The brothers suddenly began clapping and cheering, knowing that the pledges had made a big step towards becoming good brothers.
"We love volunteers," said Drew, and he said we had passed the first test - almost. Each of the volunteers would have to back up their step forward by licking and kissing Eric's dick.
I think the seven us were so happy to avoid actually sucking Eric that a simple lick and kiss would be easy.
Eric lay down on the floor, and each of us knelt down to do our deed. After about the fifth lick and kiss, Eric was nearly hard, but his Best Pledge softy would never have won the Super Most Excellent Boner Award.
Grasso returned to his room, happy that his pledge class had gotten eight of the 33 steps completed in one night - eight of the 33 hazing practices banned by Phi Gamma Delta's Law Against Hazing.