Greek Week, a competition that pits Tech’s various fraternities and sororities against each other in events and games such as tug (of war) and dizzy bat races, comes to a close Saturday night after a week’s worth of competitions and philanthropic events.
“Our kickoff event every year is tug, which took place Saturday the 10th. This year we had the biggest turnout we’ve ever had. We had 20 fraternities competing,” said Overall Co-Chair of Greek Week and fourth year ARCH major, Kyle Taylor.
Among those fraternities, this year’s competition included its first ever National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha. All nine Collegiate Panhellenic Council sororities competed as well.
Some other notable differences between this year’s Greek Week and previous years’ include cutting and adding events from last year to better reflect student interest and changing the competition’s time frame back to a single week as before.
“It used to run from Sunday to the following Tuesday,” Taylor said. “We wanted to move it back into one week. It was a little ridiculous calling it Greek Week when it was more than one week [long].”
“From start to finish, there are around 25 events throughout the week,” said the other Overall Co-Chair of Greek Week and 4th year INTA student, Mary Piantadose.
While most of this year’s events are the same or similar to past ones, there have been some alterations.
“We cut people’s least favorite events and we revamped the least popular events and then added some new events. Instead of ping pong, we got corn hole and we were able to have it on the Fifth Street Bridge,” Piantadose said.
This year’s remaining competitive events include a slam-dunk contest, a dodgeball tournament, and Greek Sing and Stroll. Sing and Stroll will feature five fraternity and five sorority groups performing songs in a musical contest as well as a special performance by the GTGs. All leftover tickets for Greek Sing and Stroll will be distributed in the Flag Building from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. today, April 16. Like all of the other Greek Week festivities, this final event is open to all spectators—Greek students and non-Greek students alike.
Unlike in previous years, this year’s Greek Week has made huge push to support some of Tech’s established philanthropic organizations.
While the annual week of games and competitions for Tech’s Greek population is ending, Greek Week’s two largest philanthropic events, Relay for Life and Tech Beautification Day (TBD) are set to kick-off tonight and tomorrow morning, respectively.
“We decided to pair with pre-existing organizations on campus and work with them to promote their cause and get them all of the volunteers that they need,” Piantadose said.
The Relay For Life event begins at 7 p.m. this evening on the SAC Fields and will last 12 hours through 7 a.m. Saturday morning. This year’s TBD will take place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
These two philanthropic events, like the rest of the week’s games and contests, award points to all attending sorority and fraternity members.
At the end of the week, points for event participation, attendance, and performance for each participating fraternity and sorority will be tallied to determine the overall 2010 Greek Week champions.