With Greek Week finally at a close, many houses have left sore, sorry, injured, and as always, angry. Now I can write all day about what we need to change about Greek Week, however, the main thing that will bring about change is the Greek Week survey that will be emailed out soon. You're probably going to fill it out for the simple reason that it counts for points, but if you actually fill it out with meaningful info, IFC and Panhellenic might actually change things. Also, as a disclaimer, the Greek community is always very appreciative of the hard work that all the IFC and Panhellenic reps put into Greek Week. This is not an article bashing those reps and their hard work. If you want to see an article praising their work, click here. This is simply an article expressing displeasure with inefficient and ineffective policies in place. I also intend to not give any problem without a solution. So, without further ado, here are the top ten things that need to be changed about Greek Week.
1. The Bus System Doesn't Work
Let's first establish the reason there is a bus system is because there is a beer garden. IFC and Panhellenic cannot have the beer garden without having a reliable form of sober transportation. This is why we have the bus system. That being said, the bus system is terrible. There is no set time for when the busses arrive or when they leave. The only reliable one is at 9am. Also, you better hope your athletes all make it on that first bus, otherwise you're probably forfeiting quite a bit of your first round games. My solution to this problem is pretty simple. Allow people to carpool to the games. When they get there, charge $5 per car for parking. Collect their keys and have them sign in. When they go to leave, they'll have to blow on a breathalyzer to get their keys back. This would be somewhat annoying and tedious, but it would encourage people to carpool. Also, the $5 per car would easily cover the cost of the breathalyzer mouth pieces.
2. Get Rid of Participation Events
Other than Greek Day of Service, the Blood Drive, and Greek Pride Day, the service events are easily the worst part of Greek Week. I get why we have them, but a majority of the Greek community is a tech degree and the non tech degrees don't have it much easier. Greek Week is already stressful enough without having to skip out on homework, studying, and tests to go to a participation event. Feel free to put the event on, but stop making it mandatory.
3. Have the Sororities Compete in Hercules
It's 2016 and the country is in full swing SJW mode. Why shouldn't we have the sororities compete in the Hercules competition. You could call it the Amazonian competition. The Amazonians were strong independent women who didn't need any men which is practically the theme song for all the sorority women. But in all seriousness, I know of at least one girl in each sorority that would kill for a chance to out show the Hercules competitors.
4. Sororities Pick Greek Week Kings
So every year the fraternities pick sorority women to represent them as their Greek Week Queen, but what I have never understood is why the sororities also pick women. I think it would be fair and also more relevant if the sororities picked Greek Week Kings to represent them. Also, Missouri S&T doesn't have a very big homecoming tradition, so getting elected as Greek Week King and Greek Week Queen in my opinion would be a lot cooler than getting elected to homecoming court. I'm also 100% sure that whatever guys got chosen to represent the sororities would be more honored than the girls who get chosen to represent the fraternities.
5. Fix the Big House/ Little House Problem
So this is the second year in a row we have used the weighted bracket system for the big vs. little house conundrum. Personally, I think it sucks because it is unintentionally half assed. So obviously not having the system in place makes it seem like only the big houses can win, however, I would argue that no one really is at a disadvantage because it's all about what kind of guys you are rushing. If a small house put a rush focus on athletic guys, they could easily sweep Greek Week. On top of that, a lot of the events aren't even that athletic and they are more focused on being good at something really weird, like washers. The flip side to fixing the problem would be to completely segregate the little houses from the big houses. Have a small house champion and a big house champion. You could maybe have a final bragging rights chariot race between the two champions. This system would be similar to the NFC vs. AFC in football or National League vs. American League in baseball.
6. Fix the Soda Cart
In all honesty, Greek Week is pretty well ran. However, if anything were to get a participation ribbon, it would be the soda cart. I would say something along the lines of "at least you tried" but I'm never sure if that's even applicable. There's always something that goes wrong and it seems like it just really isn't thought out. I know during closing games, they didn't even have water for the first 3 hours. My solution to this is pretty simple. You're already paying people to come out and work the beer garden. Just pay them to set up a soda cart and work that as well. At the very least, allow the houses to bring their own jugs of water, soda, juice, etc. It's not asking too much to just go around and try everyone's jugs of liquid.
7. The Cup System Doesn't Work
It doesn't work and it doesn't make sense. Just allow people to bring their own cups of their choosing. You already check bags as it is. Just make sure no one is bringing liquid in and you're golden. If you have to ration the beer, just sell red solo cups for $.25 or include it with the first beer. However, if you are really set on sticking with the cups, at least give us bigger ones. Like I'm pretty sure I've peed in bigger cups for drug tests.
8. Make the Chariot Race Great Again
A chariot is meant to go around a large track with a gradual turn at high speeds. A chariot is not meant to put 180 degree turn in a 5 foot radius. The chariot race is a staple of Greek times so my opinion is that it should be done at opening ceremonies around the big track. The show chariot should also be due by opening ceremonies that way all of the GODZ can be escorted on their house's show chariot. At the very least though, allow the chariot race to be just a straight 100 meter dash.
9. Get Real, Knowledgeable, Impartial Referees
Every year everyone leaves the games hating IFC and Panhellenic. 80% of this hatred is directly proportional to the refereeing done by IFC and Panhellenic. The solution is simple, get referees who aren't associated with IFC, Panhellenic, or Greek life in general. You could get these refs from the Centre or even ask the people in charge of IM's. Either way it takes the blame off of IFC and Panhellenic.
10. Move Opening and Closing Games to Frat Row Fields
This would solve all of the logistical problems of Greek Week. Honestly, having the games at the airport makes IFC and Panhellenic look like they are gluttonous for self inflicted stress. There is precedent of having a beer garden on campus with St. Pat's week. You wouldn't have to worry about the bus system, and worse case scenario would be to have a bus go from Pine Street to the fields. On top of all this, we don't need to worry about wrecking the fields because the new IM fields down at Gale-Bullman are where all the sports are played now anyways.
