Yes, I'm skipping a chapter. The chapter I'm skipping is about two of the brothers being arrested, and, as there's no way to really scrub their identities in this chapter, as a courtesy to them, I'm not posting it.
Also, it's just not a good chapter.
in any case,...
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Also, it's just not a good chapter.
in any case,...
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Chapter 59: The Last Great Phi
Psi 500
Saturday, April 4, 1987 Papal Mass is marred by violence
How
does a tradition die?
Is
it because people don’t care anymore?
Once
upon a time, there was a tradition at Penn State State College . Simple enough. But in this race, everyone has to go to six
bars and chug a beer in each before going on with the race. Whoever thought of this was a fucking
genius! The money got raised by canning,
the fees, t-shirt sales, raffles, and the drinks purchased during the
race. Figure over a thousand racers
paying fifty cents a drink per drink, times six, and that’s a decent chunk of
change right there!
Collegian, April 6, 1987
How
could it get any better? Well, add a
second part of the race for the non-runners.
Make it a costume contest with prizes so that you’ll have college
students with their twisted beer-fueled imaginations coming up with insane
ideas.
As
can be imagined, this event was huge.
There were always events for which all the alumni would try like hell to
return. Fall had Homecoming. Summer had Arts Fest. Spring had the Phi Psi. The hotels would be booked solid for miles
around. The bars and restaurants were
packed. It was a bonanza for all the
downtown merchants- just like another football weekend. During the race, people would line the
streets cheering. Some people were
openly drinking, but the cops ignored it as long as the drinkers remembered the
most important rule: “don’t be an asshole.”
Phi
Psi- with all of this in its favor, how could such a tradition die? Like this- the school administration
announced that they wanted the Phi Psi 500 to be “dry.” Phi Psi caved in, like they had a fucking
choice. So starting in 1988, a program
of phasing out beer from the Phi Psi 500 would begin.
Of
course students and alumni were pissed off, but what could they do? Even though all the racers had to be twenty
one and have their IDs pinned to their shirts, the police could still clamp
down for “public drunkenness” or whatever.
And, of course, the university could pull Phi Psi’s charter.
Welcome
to Reagan’s America Penn State
Phi
Psi tried to minimize the damage. The
Collegian interviewed the guy running it, Todd Dagen, and he said “We want to
continue the race in years to come if people will just participate without the
alcohol.”1
Right. Whatever.
Skull was on tap,
of course. We kept the keg in the
coatroom to the left of the foyer (where we had the house payphone.) We had blue opaque plastic cups- because if
the cops couldn’t tell it was beer, they didn’t have probable cause to come
onto the property. Skull had been doing
this for years- we were pros. We also
put up a temporary fence along the edges of the lawn to keep people off of
it. No one was gonna tear up our lawn
but us! See, we were right on the race
route. The bar across the street, The
Brewery, was one of the six. This meant
that our lawn was prime real estate for watching the festivities. We had pledges at the bottom of the stairs
with a guest list and a couple of pledges on the side porch to keep people
out.
Of
course, we invited a sorority over every year.
That way, not only not only did the girls get to party with Skull, but
they also had an awesome place to watch the race go by, Of course, the sorority was always grateful. Very grateful.
So
here it was- the day that everyone hoped wouldn’t be but kinda knew would be
the last great Phi Psi 500. The alumni
returned and everyone was excited.
And
it rained. Hard. It was like God had decided to fill Happy Valley
The
streets were lined with people in raincoats or with umbrellas or just getting
soaked. Virginia and I headed over to
the Bone. People tended to stay inside
until they had a few, then they didn’t care if they were wet or not. Some of the Chi Os were carried outside
laughing and screaming. Eventually
almost everyone was outside: soaked and happy.
So
Virginia and I drank and watched as the “real racers” went sprinting down the
hill to the Brewery. And the old folks
(35 and older.) And the sorority
relay. By the time the “anything goes”
group came through, were already fairly bombed and talking about stupid shit. As usual, the brothers pretty much ignored
me, so it was mostly just the two of us.
Occasionally one of the pledges came over to talk to me, but not
often.
We
watched as a group of runners went by in slow motion: the “Chariots of Fire”
group.
You
know, even with unlimited beer and entertainment, a party isn’t that much fun
if no one socializes with you. I was
bored. The Greatest Party Day- and I was
bored. Had another beer and decided to
leave. Virginia and I walked past some
brothers rolling around in the grass with mud covered laughing sorority girls.
Took
some time to worm through the crowd on Beaver Ave California
Virginia
and I showered and fucked ourselves silly.
There
would never be another Phi Psi like this one.
1.
Esper, Patty, “Phi Psi faces less alcohol, possible snow” Daily Collegian, April 3, 1987
I started Penn State in 1986 so I always felt gypped by what Phi Psi became. Running in the 500 was one of those things you had to do to be a Penn Stater (according to some book I had).
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