By Mark Zmarzly,
University of Nebraska

Daily Nebraskan (U. Nebraska)
2 April '98

I buy my friends.

I don't have much money so they aren't good friends. Just kidding, fellas.

That's the reason I joined a fraternity. I figured I wouldn't make any
friends on my own so I'd better buy them. I pay for the privilege of
friendship.

What I can't figure out is why my room and board at the fraternity was
only $3,240 for the school year. Dorm rates next year are $3,640. Our
double occupancy rooms are bigger than the dorms. Our room rates also
include extended cable. If I'm paying for my friends, why am I not paying
as much as a person living in a dorm?

It is a commonly held stereotype that members of the greek system buy
their friends.

There are social, pledge and initiation fees the first year that push your
total living expenses as a freshman over that of someone living in the
dorms. There are also in-house scholarships, paid offices and payment
plans that reduce that cost back below that of living in the dorms.

I didn't join a fraternity because I feared I wouldn't fit in. I joined
because I thought the guys there would be loyal friends for life. On March
27, I received a reminder of that fact.

It was the last day of spring break. I was sitting around with five
friends in our Panama City Beach (Fla.) hotel room. We were sitting around
talking, waiting to go out for the evening. We were supposed to be talking
about the week, women, the trip home or what club we would be going to.

Instead we were talking about another friend of ours who was back in
Nebraska.

In March 1996, a brother in my fraternity came up to me at 8 a.m. the
Thursday before spring break. I had heard his little sister had passed
away the night before. He walked into my room and told me when the funeral
was so I could spread the word among the fraternity members.

I asked him how he was holding up, and he broke down crying. I hugged him
for 10 minutes, not knowing what to say. I told him how sorry I was and
that I would see him at the funeral.

I didn't know his sister; I didn't even know he had a sister before that
morning. But I felt an instant connection to the pain he was going through
and I felt devastated. The funeral was on Saturday. My fraternity brothers
took off work, delayed spring break trips, put off going home and even
came back from out of town to be there in support.

When we arrived, the church was packed. There were five seats reserved in
the pews for myself and four of the other officers. The other 30 or 40 of
my brothers watched the funeral on a television in another building,
without sound.

We weren't there to hear the funeral service. We weren't there to speak.
We were there to support our brother. That support came in the form of
simply being there for him.

We saw our friend for a total of only 30 seconds that day. In those 30
seconds, he walked out of the church, looked over at all of us standing in
the grass and said to his mother, "That's my fraternity."

That brother had a difficult time with the death of his sister. The next
time we saw our friend he made it obvious how much our support that day
meant to him. When I think of that day I think of tragedy and pain, but
most of all, I think of support.

Brotherhood and the fraternity experience are concepts without definition.
When someone comes up to me and asks me to explain what brotherhood is, I
can't. It is something different to all members.

Friendships are formed and tightened in every aspect of our lives. A
simple conversation over dinner can make a friendship stronger.
Fraternities and sororities add another dimension to a friendship.

Members of the greek system are there for a common purpose - to add their
abilities and skills to the organization. This common purpose and the
shared experiences bond members together tighter than in a normal
situation. You work and live with these same members, and it only
increases the bonds that you feel.

Just two weeks ago the women of Gamma Phi Beta Sorority buried a sister
and friend, Laura Cockson. These women have been each other's support for
the last two weeks. Not only have they given a shoulder to each other but
also to the Cockson family.

The grief that all of these family members feel is eased ever so slightly
by the knowledge that so many people knew and loved their daughter.

The goal of this article is not to convert all members of this campus to
greeks. The truth is that being greek is not for everyone. It takes a lot
of time, dedication, personal sacrifice and selflessness. The unity and
friendship that results from this conscious time sacrifice has been
enormous.

I could not imagine surviving and excelling the way I have over the last
five years without my fraternity brothers. People in the dorms may have
friendships that match or even exceed the ones I have described above.

If you believe that greeks pay for their friends, I won't disagree with
you.

We pay with time, sacrifice and ourselves.
 

Written by Mark Zmarzly, copyright 1998